Andrew Haley wrote: >> I'm not against NSS - really I'm not. But there are other considerations >> to be taken into account. >> >> 1) Does NSS have any kind of support for hardware crypto offload? If so, >> I haven't found any references to it (but maybe my google-foo is weak >> today). > > Interesting question; not sure. I think it is an important one to answer, and sooner rather than later. This is particularly important to the ARM community since a lot of (most?) ARMs seem to have a crypto co-processor of some description (Freescales, Kirkwood and Tegra definitely seem to have this, I haven't checked others, but since these are the three classes of devices I own, that's 3 out of 3 - I don't think it's luck/coincidence). This is particularly important for server applications. ARM is getting some traction in the server market. ZT make a really nice (if expensive) multi-ARM server. I have seriously discussed using ShevaPlugs/GuruPlugs specifically for large scale-out low-power SSL offload with clients. Crypto offload support is already important, and it's importance is only going to go up. >> 2) More abstraction (a OpenSSL->NSS shim library), means more bloat, >> more context switching and less performance. Is that really the way >> forward? I mean _really_? > > For bulk crypto operations an extra call via a shim probably doesn't > matter. For some signature operations it might. > > It seems like a clean solution from the point of view of application > developers, though. The other thing that needs to be considered is added complexity and security. I would imagine that since there is an abstraction layer, it introduces additional scope for exploits (buffer overruns, stack smashing, etc.) Is this shim library going to also be FIPS certified? If not then the improved security aspect of NSS vs. OpenSSL comes a lot closer to pure marketing rhetoric (maybe that's where it's at at the moment anyway, I don't claim to be an expert on the subject). >> 3) Volume of supported commonly used software - if NSS has a clear >> advantage in terms of support base, then so be it, let's all put our >> weight behind it. But my perception is that this is not the case. >> Everything I touch upon on a daily basis seems to be linked against >> OpenSSL rather than NSS. > > Well, that's not true for everyone, and certainly not for users of > GPG. I thought it was mentioned on this thread recently that GPG brings it's own implementation anyway. Did I misunderstand? > But the real question is whether one group of Fedora developers is > determinedly going to push NSS and the other OpenSSL. That is not a > route to happiness. It's not, but losing crypto offload and/or a performance drop-off and bloat due to shimming isn't a happy solution, either. If we can address those (the latter by sending patches to build against NSS upstream so shimming isn't required), then it'd be a great idea. But purely in terms of standardizing on a single crypto library - has anyone actually performed an exhaustive analysis on how much would need to be changed to go either way? The wiki page that has been referenced a few times seems distinctly non-exhaustive. Maybe my perception is non-representative here, but as I said, all the things I get my hands dirty on a regular basis are linked against OpenSSL rather than NSS. The pragmatist in me says that maybe that makes OpenSSL a better target to standardize on, but I would like to see an exhaustive analysis / empirical evidence showing otherwise. Gordan _______________________________________________ arm mailing list arm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/arm
