summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/crypto/intro.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2026-08-30 09:22:00 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2026-08-30 09:22:00 -0700
commit034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c (patch)
tree2536f4b2d7893ccd916b5abdf3c454ad6edc03c2 /Documentation/crypto/intro.rst
downloadlinux-stable-034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c.tar.gz
linux-stable-034dd340b08be1f2f0477ad16131d609f9dbd53c.zip
Merge tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-tracegrafted
Pull tracing fixes from Steven Rostedt: - Fix error output of boot instance creation failure Currently if a boot instance creation fails, instead of printing out the name of the instance that failed, it prints "(null)". That is because it prints "cur_str" that had already been processed by strsep(). Print the saved name instead. While at it, print the error code of the failure. - Fix use-after-free for same named historgrams Histograms can be named so that they can be used in multiple events. But if the named histogram has a variable attached, the second event that uses the named histogram which duplicates it and needs to free the original after duplication leaves the old variable in place and still visible. If another histogram uses than variable, it will use the stale one which will try to reference the freed duplicate histogram and crash the kernel. Free the duplicate variables along with the duplicated histogram data. - Check return value of kthread_run() in event self test The events self tests uses a kthread for testing but does not check if it succeeded in creating a kthread. If the kthread creation were to fail, the code will still try to call kthread_stop() on the error returned. - Fix race between reading trace_pipe and updating subbuffer size If a user is reading the trace_pipe file at the same time they update the ring buffer sub-buffer size, can cause the trace_pipe read to read stale data. Add trace_access_lock() around updating the ring buffer sub-buffer size. - Fix eventfs_inode on failure path in creation of the events directory In the creation of the "events" directory, if after allocating the eventfs_inode a failure is detected, it calls cleanup_ei() which calls free_ei(). The free_ei() will test if eventfs_inode being freed has no children. It is a bug if it does. But on the failure case of the creation of the "events" directory, the children lists have not yet been initialized and the free will trigger a warning because list_empty() on an uninitialized list returns false. Move the initialization into init_ei() where it makes more sense and makes sure that a created eventfs_inode has its lists initialized upon creation. - Check return value of kthread_run() in ftrace direct sample code The sample code that shows how to use the ftrace direct calls does not test the return of kthread_run() to see if it succeeds. Return a failure if the kthread_run() doesn't succeed. - Clear user events state on fork in case of alloc failure On fork, the child gets a pointer to the parent's user events state. It makes a copy of it then updates the child's pointer to it. But if the allocation fails, the duplication function leaves the child with a pointer to its parent's descriptor. When the child cleans up its data, it will free the parent's descriptor while the parent is still using it. In the duplication function, set the child's user_event_mm to NULL before testing if the allocation succeeded, and when it exits it will not free the parent's descriptor. - Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap simple_ring_buffer_swap_reader_page() starts with retry set to 8 and post-decrements it only after a failed link replacement. On the final attempt, a successful replacement leaves retry at zero, while a failed replacement leaves it at -1. But the check for success expects the retry value to be non-zero and exits with an error on zero. This is the opposite result. Fix it. - Fail nicely when the remote swap_reader_page() returns an error Currently, if the swap_reader_page() of a remote buffer fails, it triggers a WARN_ON_ONCE() and continues normally. Instead, have it exit with an error and a pr_warn() print instead of a full WARNING. * tag 'trace-v7.3-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/trace/linux-trace: ring-buffer: Stop remote reader update when page swap fails tracing: Fix retry exhaustion in simple ring buffer reader swap tracing/user_events: Clear copied tracing state before fork duplication samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-multi-modify samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-modify eventfs: Initialize ei->children and ei->list in init_ei() tracing: Fix use-after-free in trace_pipe read on sub-buffer order change tracing: Fix crash passing ERR_PTR to kthread_stop() tracing: Fix use-after-free with same-name named triggers tracing: Fix logged instance name on creation failure
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/crypto/intro.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/crypto/intro.rst74
1 files changed, 74 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/crypto/intro.rst b/Documentation/crypto/intro.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9aa89ebbf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/crypto/intro.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
+Kernel Crypto API Interface Specification
+=========================================
+
+Introduction
+------------
+
+The kernel crypto API offers a rich set of cryptographic ciphers as well
+as other data transformation mechanisms and methods to invoke these.
+This document contains a description of the API and provides example
+code.
+
+To understand and properly use the kernel crypto API a brief explanation
+of its structure is given. Based on the architecture, the API can be
+separated into different components. Following the architecture
+specification, hints to developers of ciphers are provided. Pointers to
+the API function call documentation are given at the end.
+
+The kernel crypto API refers to all algorithms as "transformations".
+Therefore, a cipher handle variable usually has the name "tfm". Besides
+cryptographic operations, the kernel crypto API also knows compression
+transformations and handles them the same way as ciphers.
+
+The kernel crypto API serves the following entity types:
+
+- consumers requesting cryptographic services
+
+- data transformation implementations (typically ciphers) that can be
+ called by consumers using the kernel crypto API
+
+This specification is intended for consumers of the kernel crypto API as
+well as for developers implementing ciphers. This API specification,
+however, does not discuss all API calls available to data transformation
+implementations (i.e. implementations of ciphers and other
+transformations (such as CRC or even compression algorithms) that can
+register with the kernel crypto API).
+
+Note: The terms "transformation" and cipher algorithm are used
+interchangeably.
+
+Terminology
+-----------
+
+The transformation implementation is an actual code or interface to
+hardware which implements a certain transformation with precisely
+defined behavior.
+
+The transformation object (TFM) is an instance of a transformation
+implementation. There can be multiple transformation objects associated
+with a single transformation implementation. Each of those
+transformation objects is held by a crypto API consumer or another
+transformation. Transformation object is allocated when a crypto API
+consumer requests a transformation implementation. The consumer is then
+provided with a structure, which contains a transformation object (TFM).
+
+The structure that contains transformation objects may also be referred
+to as a "cipher handle". Such a cipher handle is always subject to the
+following phases that are reflected in the API calls applicable to such
+a cipher handle:
+
+1. Initialization of a cipher handle.
+
+2. Execution of all intended cipher operations applicable for the handle
+ where the cipher handle must be furnished to every API call.
+
+3. Destruction of a cipher handle.
+
+When using the initialization API calls, a cipher handle is created and
+returned to the consumer. Therefore, please refer to all initialization
+API calls that refer to the data structure type a consumer is expected
+to receive and subsequently to use. The initialization API calls have
+all the same naming conventions of crypto_alloc\*.
+
+The transformation context is private data associated with the
+transformation object.