Re: [PATCH v2 00/12] crypto: caam - Add RTA descriptor creation library

[Kim Phillips <kim.phillips@freescale.com>]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2014 15:54:22 +0300
Horia Geanta <horia.geanta@freescale.com> wrote:

> This patch set adds Run Time Assembler (RTA) SEC descriptor library.
> RTA is a replacement for incumbent "inline append".
> 
> The library is intended to be a single code base for SEC descriptors creation
> for all Freescale products. This comes with a series of advantages, such as
> library being maintained / kept up-to-date with latest platforms, i.e. SEC
> functionalities (for e.g. SEC incarnations present in Layerscape LS1 and LS2).
> 
> RTA detects options in SEC descriptors that are not supported
> by a SEC HW revision ("Era") and reports this back.
> Say a descriptor uses Sequence Out Pointer (SOP) option for the SEQINPTR
> command, which is supported starting from SEC Era 5. If the descriptor would
> be built on a P4080R3 platform (which has SEC Era 4), RTA would report
> "SEQ IN PTR: Flag(s) not supported by SEC Era 4".
> This is extremely useful and saves a lot of time wasted on debugging.
> SEC HW detects only *some* of these problems, leaving user wonder what causes
> a "DECO Watchdog Timeout". And when it prints something more useful, sometimes
> it does not point to the exact opcode.

again, RTA just adds bloat to the kernel driver - the kernel driver
is supposed to generate the appropriate descriptor for its target
running SEC version no matter what, not "report back" what is/is not
supported.  This is a flaw at the RTA design level, as far as the
kernel driver is concerned.

Thanks,

Kim