Re: [RFC net-next 01/15] psp: add documentation

Saeed Mahameed
2024-05-10T22:19:24Z

On 09 May 20:04, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
>Add documentation of things which belong in the docs rather
>than commit messages.
>
>Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
>---
> Documentation/networking/index.rst | 1 +
> Documentation/networking/psp.rst | 138 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 2 files changed, 139 insertions(+)
> create mode 100644 Documentation/networking/psp.rst
>
>diff --git a/Documentation/networking/index.rst b/Documentation/networking/index.rst
>index 7664c0bfe461..0376029ecbdf 100644
>--- a/Documentation/networking/index.rst
>+++ b/Documentation/networking/index.rst
>@@ -94,6 +94,7 @@ Refer to :ref:`netdev-FAQ` for a guide on netdev development process specifics.
> ppp_generic
> proc_net_tcp
> pse-pd/index
>+ psp
> radiotap-headers
> rds
> regulatory
>diff --git a/Documentation/networking/psp.rst b/Documentation/networking/psp.rst
>new file mode 100644
>index 000000000000..a39b464813ab
>--- /dev/null
>+++ b/Documentation/networking/psp.rst
>@@ -0,0 +1,138 @@
>+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only
>+
>+=====================
>+PSP Security Protocol
>+=====================
>+
>+Protocol
>+========
>+
>+PSP Security Protocol (PSP) was defined at Google and published in:
>+
>+https://raw.githubusercontent.com/google/psp/main/doc/PSP_Arch_Spec.pdf
>+
>+This section briefly covers protocol aspects crucial for understanding
>+the kernel API. Refer to the protocol specification for further details.
>+
>+Note that the kernel implementation and documentation uses the term
>+"secret state" in place of "master key", it is both less confusing
>+to an average developer and is less likely to run afoul any naming
>+guidelines.
>+

[ ... ]

>+User facing API
>+===============
>+
>+PSP is designed primarily for hardware offloads. There is currently
>+no software fallback for systems which do not have PSP capable NICs.
>+There is also no standard (or otherwise defined) way of establishing
>+a PSP-secured connection or exchanging the symmetric keys.
>+
>+The expectation is that higher layer protocols will take care of
>+protocol and key negotiation. For example one may use TLS key exchange,
>+announce the PSP capability, and switch to PSP if both endpoints
>+are PSP-capable.
>+

The documentation doesn't include anything about userspace, other than
highlevel remarks on how this is expected to work.
What are we planning for userspace? I know we have kperf basic support and
some experimental python library, but nothing official or psp centric.

I propose to start community driven project with a well established
library, with some concrete sample implementation for key negotiation,
as a plugin maybe, so anyone can implement their own key-exchange
mechanisms on top of the official psp library.