summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/crypto/intro.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorYazen Ghannam <yazen.ghannam@amd.com>2026-09-03 10:43:25 -0500
committerBorislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>2026-09-10 18:05:43 -0700
commit27600805e62f800bacf990354632eae4e487d34c (patch)
treee8aec0ddfaa0bc264d79af632e3de3f1b75ae4c8 /Documentation/crypto/intro.rst
downloadlinux-stable-27600805e62f800bacf990354632eae4e487d34c.tar.gz
linux-stable-27600805e62f800bacf990354632eae4e487d34c.zip
x86/amd_node: Fix PCI device reference counting in amd_smn_init()grafted
The local "root" pointer is a temporary variable used during the device search. Therefore, refcount related to the search iterators should be cleaned up after the search is complete. Use the __free() cleanup macro to ensure the refcount is decremented when the temporary pointer goes out of scope. Additionally, increment the refcount when caching a root pointer. This ensures the in-use refcount is separate from the temporary search refcounting. Finally, drop the redundant "root = NULL" before the second search loop. The pci_get_class() iterator always decrements the refcount of its "from" argument, so the first loop can only fall through with "root" already NULL. Fixes: 0a4b61d9c2e4 ("x86/amd_node: Fix AMD root device caching") Closes: https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260806160159.230453-1-jason.andryuk%40amd.com Reported-by: Sashiko <sashiko-bot@kernel.org> Assisted-by: LLM Signed-off-by: Yazen Ghannam <yazen.ghannam@amd.com> Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de> Reviewed-by: Mario Limonciello (AMD) <superm1@kernel.org> Cc: <stable@kernel.org> Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260903154325.74343-1-yazen.ghannam@amd.com
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.