linux-kernel - Where to add FIPS tests

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Message-ID: <2158596.1763395299@warthog.procyon.org.uk>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2025 16:01:39 +0000
From: David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
To: Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>
Cc: dhowells@...hat.com, Eric Biggers <ebiggers@...nel.org>,
    Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>,
    Petr Pavlu <petr.pavlu@...e.com>, Daniel Gomez <da.gomez@...nel.org>,
    Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@...gle.com>,
    "Jason A . Donenfeld" <Jason@...c4.com>,
    Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@...nel.org>,
    Stephan Mueller <smueller@...onox.de>,
    Lukas Wunner <lukas@...ner.de>,
    Ignat Korchagin <ignat@...udflare.com>, linux-crypto@...r.kernel.org,
    keyrings@...r.kernel.org, linux-modules@...r.kernel.org,
    linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Where to add FIPS tests

Hi Herbert,

I'm wondering from where I should invoke the FIPS tests for ML-DSA.

Currently, the asymmetric key type has some FIPS selftests for RSA and ECDSA
built into it, but I wonder if that's the best way.  The problem is that it
does the selftest during module init - but that can only test whatever
algorithms are built into the base kernel image and initialised at the time
late_initcall() happens.

It might be better to put the tests into the algorithm modules themselves -
but that then has a potential circular dependency issue.  However, that might
not matter as the asymmetric key type won't be built as a module and will be
built into the kernel (though some of the components such as X.509 and PKCS#7
can be built as modules).

If I don't involve X.509/PKCS#7 in the selftest, then doing it from the ML-DSA
modules during module init would be fine.

Do you (or anyone else) have any thoughts?

David