Re: [PATCH v2] Add support for OpenSSL Provider API

[Mattijs Korpershoek <mkorpershoek@kernel.org>]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 10:38, Eddie Kovsky <ekovsky@redhat.com> wrote:

> On 12/11/25, Mattijs Korpershoek wrote:
>> Hi Eddie,
>> 
>> Thank you for working on this. It would be really nice if we could build
>> U-Boot on more recent Linux distros without bridge packages such as
>> openssl-devel-engine.
>> 
>> 
>> I also don't linke this double negative.
>> As you already shared, Linux solved this via:
>> 
>> #if OPENSSL_VERSION_MAJOR >= 3
>> 
>> Why can't we have something similar?
>> See: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=558bdc45dfb2669e1741384a0c80be9c82fa052c
>> 
>
> Hi Mattijs
>
> Yes, we could also implement it this way with the extra USE_PKCS11_XXX
> symbol. Jan's original patch I based my work on does something similar,
> and I perhaps oversimplified it.

In my experience, when porting things from the Linux kernel into U-Boot,
we try to keep the code as similar as possible. This helps reducing
maintainance burden.

Sometimes, we can't do that. In that case, we should explain why.

Do we have a strong reason for *not* reusing OPENSSL_VERSION_MAJOR with
USE_PKCS11_XXX ?

[...]

>> >> 
>> >
>> > It's not the prettiest code. But I'm trying to be very conservative
>> > in making these changes so that no one's workflow is disrupted.
>> > Developers should be able to build U-Boot with the latest OpenSSL
>> > without impacting developers who are in environments utilizing the
>> > Engine API. The goal here is to preserve feature parity between the two
>> > APIs. Adding support for custom Providers is outside the scope of this
>> > change, but could certainly be added later.
>> 
>> I'd be in favor to drop CONFIG_OPENSSL_NO_DEPRECATED all together and
>> just use "#if OPENSSL_VERSION_MAJOR >= 3".
>> 
>> Tom, or anyone else, is there a particular` reason for gating this in a
>> Kconfig ?
>> 
>> The oldest Ubuntu version that seems supported (22.04) already has
>> OpenSSL version 3:
>> 
>> $ podman run -it /bin/bash ubuntu:22.04
>> root@6dc347676b8a:~# apt update && apt install -y openssl
>> root@6dc347676b8a:~# openssl version
>> OpenSSL 3.0.2 15 Mar 2022 (Library: OpenSSL 3.0.2 15 Mar 2022)
>> 
>
> I assumed that we would want this to be an explicit config option, but
> logically there is no reason that it has to be. I'd be happy to spin up
> a v3 if there's agreement that the Kconfig isn't needed.

Tom, do you have an opinion on this? It seems you are listed as
maintainer for this (THE REST).

>
> Eddie