linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] nfsd: Use MD5 library instead of crypto

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Message-ID: <20251012170018.GA1609@sol>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2025 10:00:18 -0700
From: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@...nel.org>
To: Jeff Layton <jlayton@...nel.org>
Cc: linux-nfs@...r.kernel.org, Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@...cle.com>,
	NeilBrown <neil@...wn.name>,
	Olga Kornievskaia <okorniev@...hat.com>,
	Dai Ngo <Dai.Ngo@...cle.com>, Tom Talpey <tom@...pey.com>,
	linux-crypto@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] nfsd: Use MD5 library instead of crypto_shash

On Sun, Oct 12, 2025 at 07:12:26AM -0400, Jeff Layton wrote:
> On Sat, 2025-10-11 at 11:52 -0700, Eric Biggers wrote:
> > Update NFSD's support for "legacy client tracking" (which uses MD5) to
> > use the MD5 library instead of crypto_shash.  This has several benefits:
> > 
> > - Simpler code.  Notably, much of the error-handling code is no longer
> >   needed, since the library functions can't fail.
> > 
> > - Improved performance due to reduced overhead.  A microbenchmark of
> >   nfs4_make_rec_clidname() shows a speedup from 1455 cycles to 425.
> > 
> > - The MD5 code can now safely be built as a loadable module when nfsd is
> >   built as a loadable module.  (Previously, nfsd forced the MD5 code to
> >   built-in, presumably to work around the unreliablity of the name-based
> >   loading.)  Thus, select MD5 from the tristate option NFSD if
> >   NFSD_LEGACY_CLIENT_TRACKING, instead of from the bool option NFSD_V4.
> > 
> > To preserve the existing behavior of legacy client tracking support
> > being disabled when the kernel is booted with "fips=1", make
> > nfsd4_legacy_tracking_init() return an error if fips_enabled.  I don't
> > know if this is truly needed, but it preserves the existing behavior.
> > 
> 
> FIPS is pretty draconian about algorithms, AIUI. We're not using MD5 in
> a cryptographically significant way here, but the FIPS gods won't bless
> a kernel that uses MD5 at all, so I think it is needed.

If it's not being used for a security purpose, then I think you can just
drop the fips_enabled check.  People are used to the old API where MD5
was always forbidden when fips_enabled, but it doesn't actually need to
be that strict.  For this patch I wasn't certain about the use case
though, so I just opted to preserve the existing behavior for now.  A
follow-on patch to remove the check could make sense.

- Eric