Re: [PATCH 00/31] net/tcp: Add TCP-AO support

David Ahern
2022-08-21T23:51:38Z

On 8/21/22 2:34 PM, Leonard Crestez wrote:
> On 8/18/22 19:59, Dmitry Safonov wrote:
>> This patchset implements the TCP-AO option as described in RFC5925. There
>> is a request from industry to move away from TCP-MD5SIG and it seems
>> the time
>> is right to have a TCP-AO upstreamed. This TCP option is meant to replace
>> the TCP MD5 option and address its shortcomings. Specifically, it
>> provides
>> more secure hashing, key rotation and support for long-lived connections
>> (see the summary of TCP-AO advantages over TCP-MD5 in (1.3) of RFC5925).
>> The patch series starts with six patches that are not specific to TCP-AO
>> but implement a general crypto facility that we thought is useful
>> to eliminate code duplication between TCP-MD5SIG and TCP-AO as well as
>> other
>> crypto users. These six patches are being submitted separately in
>> a different patchset [1]. Including them here will show better the gain
>> in code sharing. Next are 18 patches that implement the actual TCP-AO
>> option,
>> followed by patches implementing selftests.
>>
>> The patch set was written as a collaboration of three authors (in
>> alphabetical
>> order): Dmitry Safonov, Francesco Ruggeri and Salam Noureddine.
>> Additional
>> credits should be given to Prasad Koya, who was involved in early
>> prototyping
>> a few years back. There is also a separate submission done by Leonard
>> Crestez
>> whom we thank for his efforts getting an implementation of RFC5925
>> submitted
>> for review upstream [2]. This is an independent implementation that makes
>> different design decisions.
>
> Is this based on something that Arista has had running for a while now
> or is a recent new development?
>

...

> Seeing an entirely distinct unrelated implementation is very unexpected.
> What made you do this?
>

I am curious as well. You are well aware of Leonard's efforts which go
back a long time, why go off and do a separate implementation?