linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2] drivers: misc: Add support for nCipher HSM devices

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Date:   Fri, 20 Dec 2019 22:30:36 +0100
From:   Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     Dave Kim <david.kim@...pher.com>
Cc:     arnd@...db.de, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Tim Magee <tim.magee@...pher.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] drivers: misc: Add support for nCipher HSM devices

On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 03:47:38PM +0000, Dave Kim wrote:
> From: David Kim <david.kim@...pher.com>
> 
> This is the driver for nCipher’s Solo and Solo XC hardware security modules.
> These modules implement a proprietary command set (the ’nCore API’) to
> perform cryptographic operations - key generation, signature, and so on. HSM
> commands and their replies are passed in a serialised binary format over the
> PCIe bus via a shared memory region. Multiple commands may be in-flight at
> any one time - command processing is multi-threaded and asynchronous. A write
> operation may, therefore, deliver multiple commands, and multiple replies may
> be retrieved in one read operation.

If this is "just" a crypto accelerator, why isn't this driver using the
existing in-kernel hardware crypto api?  What is lacking from it that
you need here?

thanks,

greg k-h