diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'src/lib/libcrypto/engine/README')
-rw-r--r-- | src/lib/libcrypto/engine/README | 483 |
1 files changed, 208 insertions, 275 deletions
diff --git a/src/lib/libcrypto/engine/README b/src/lib/libcrypto/engine/README index 96595e6f35..6b69b70f57 100644 --- a/src/lib/libcrypto/engine/README +++ b/src/lib/libcrypto/engine/README | |||
@@ -1,278 +1,211 @@ | |||
1 | NOTES, THOUGHTS, and EVERYTHING | 1 | Notes: 2001-09-24 |
2 | ------------------------------- | ||
3 | |||
4 | (1) Concurrency and locking ... I made a change to the ENGINE_free code | ||
5 | because I spotted a potential hold-up in proceedings (doing too | ||
6 | much inside a lock including calling a callback), there may be | ||
7 | other bits like this. What do the speed/optimisation freaks think | ||
8 | of this aspect of the code and design? There's lots of locking for | ||
9 | manipulation functions and I need that to keep things nice and | ||
10 | solid, but this manipulation is mostly (de)initialisation, I would | ||
11 | think that most run-time locking is purely in the ENGINE_init and | ||
12 | ENGINE_finish calls that might be made when getting handles for | ||
13 | RSA (and friends') structures. These would be mostly reference | ||
14 | count operations as the functional references should always be 1 | ||
15 | or greater at run-time to prevent init/deinit thrashing. | ||
16 | |||
17 | (2) nCipher support, via the HWCryptoHook API, is now in the code. | ||
18 | Apparently this hasn't been tested too much yet, but it looks | ||
19 | good. :-) Atalla support has been added too, but shares a lot in | ||
20 | common with Ben's original hooks in bn_exp.c (although it has been | ||
21 | ENGINE-ified, and error handling wrapped around it) and it's also | ||
22 | had some low-volume testing, so it should be usable. | ||
23 | |||
24 | (3) Of more concern, we need to work out (a) how to put together usable | ||
25 | RAND_METHODs for units that just have one "get n or less random | ||
26 | bytes" function, (b) we also need to determine how to hook the code | ||
27 | in crypto/rand/ to use the ENGINE defaults in a way similar to what | ||
28 | has been done in crypto/rsa/, crypto/dsa/, etc. | ||
29 | |||
30 | (4) ENGINE should really grow to encompass more than 3 public key | ||
31 | algorithms and randomness gathering. The structure/data level of | ||
32 | the engine code is hidden from code outside the crypto/engine/ | ||
33 | directory so change shouldn't be too viral. More important though | ||
34 | is how things should evolve ... this needs thought and discussion. | ||
35 | |||
36 | |||
37 | -----------------------------------==*==----------------------------------- | ||
38 | |||
39 | More notes 2000-08-01 | ||
40 | --------------------- | ||
41 | |||
42 | Geoff Thorpe, who designed the engine part, wrote a pretty good description | ||
43 | of the thoughts he had when he built it, good enough to include verbatim here | ||
44 | (with his permission) -- Richard Levitte | ||
45 | |||
46 | |||
47 | Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 16:54:08 +0100 (BST) | ||
48 | From: Geoff Thorpe | ||
49 | Subject: Re: The thoughts to merge BRANCH_engine into the main trunk are | ||
50 | emerging | ||
51 | |||
52 | Hi there, | ||
53 | |||
54 | I'm going to try and do some justice to this, but I'm a little short on | ||
55 | time and the there is an endless amount that could be discussed on this | ||
56 | subject. sigh ... please bear with me :-) | ||
57 | |||
58 | > The changes in BRANCH_engine dig deep into the core of OpenSSL, for example | ||
59 | > into the RSA and RAND routines, adding a level of indirection which is needed | ||
60 | > to keep the abstraction, as far as I understand. It would be a good thing if | ||
61 | > those who do play with those things took a look at the changes that have been | ||
62 | > done in the branch and say out loud how much (or hopefully little) we've made | ||
63 | > fools of ourselves. | ||
64 | |||
65 | The point here is that the code that has emerged in the BRANCH_engine | ||
66 | branch was based on some initial requirements of mine that I went in and | ||
67 | addressed, and Richard has picked up the ball and run with it too. It | ||
68 | would be really useful to get some review of the approach we've taken, but | ||
69 | first I think I need to describe as best I can the reasons behind what has | ||
70 | been done so far, in particular what issues we have tried to address when | ||
71 | doing this, and what issues we have intentionally (or necessarily) tried | ||
72 | to avoid. | ||
73 | |||
74 | methods, engines, and evps | ||
75 | -------------------------- | ||
76 | |||
77 | There has been some dicussion, particularly with Steve, about where this | ||
78 | ENGINE stuff might fit into the conceptual picture as/when we start to | ||
79 | abstract algorithms a little bit to make the library more extensible. In | ||
80 | particular, it would desirable to have algorithms (symmetric, hash, pkc, | ||
81 | etc) abstracted in some way that allows them to be just objects sitting in | ||
82 | a list (or database) ... it'll just happen that the "DSA" object doesn't | ||
83 | support encryption whereas the "RSA" object does. This requires a lot of | ||
84 | consideration to begin to know how to tackle it; in particular how | ||
85 | encapsulated should these things be? If the objects also understand their | ||
86 | own ASN1 encodings and what-not, then it would for example be possible to | ||
87 | add support for elliptic-curve DSA in as a new algorithm and automatically | ||
88 | have ECC-DSA certificates supported in SSL applications. Possible, but not | ||
89 | easy. :-) | ||
90 | |||
91 | Whatever, it seems that the way to go (if I've grok'd Steve's comments on | ||
92 | this in the past) is to amalgamate these things in EVP as is already done | ||
93 | (I think) for ciphers or hashes (Steve, please correct/elaborate). I | ||
94 | certainly think something should be done in this direction because right | ||
95 | now we have different source directories, types, functions, and methods | ||
96 | for each algorithm - even when conceptually they are very much different | ||
97 | feathers of the same bird. (This is certainly all true for the public-key | ||
98 | stuff, and may be partially true for the other parts.) | ||
99 | |||
100 | ENGINE was *not* conceived as a way of solving this, far from it. Nor was | ||
101 | it conceived as a way of replacing the various "***_METHOD"s. It was | ||
102 | conceived as an abstraction of a sort of "virtual crypto device". If we | ||
103 | lived in a world where "EVP_ALGO"s (or something like them) encapsulated | ||
104 | particular algorithms like RSA,DSA,MD5,RC4,etc, and "***_METHOD"s | ||
105 | encapsulated interfaces to algorithms (eg. some algo's might support a | ||
106 | PKC_METHOD, a HASH_METHOD, or a CIPHER_METHOD, who knows?), then I would | ||
107 | think that ENGINE would encapsulate an implementation of arbitrarily many | ||
108 | of those algorithms - perhaps as alternatives to existing algorithms | ||
109 | and/or perhaps as new previously unimplemented algorithms. An ENGINE could | ||
110 | be used to contain an alternative software implementation, a wrapper for a | ||
111 | hardware acceleration and/or key-management unit, a comms-wrapper for | ||
112 | distributing cryptographic operations to remote machines, or any other | ||
113 | "devices" your imagination can dream up. | ||
114 | |||
115 | However, what has been done in the ENGINE branch so far is nothing more | ||
116 | than starting to get our toes wet. I had a couple of self-imposed | ||
117 | requirements when putting the initial abstraction together, and I may have | ||
118 | already posed these in one form or another on the list, but briefly; | ||
119 | |||
120 | (i) only bother with public key algorithms for now, and maybe RAND too | ||
121 | (motivated by the need to get hardware support going and the fact | ||
122 | this was a comparitively easy subset to address to begin with). | ||
123 | |||
124 | (ii) don't change (if at all possible) the existing crypto code, ie. the | ||
125 | implementations, the way the ***_METHODs work, etc. | ||
126 | |||
127 | (iii) ensure that if no function from the ENGINE code is ever called then | ||
128 | things work the way they always did, and there is no memory | ||
129 | allocation (otherwise the failure to cleanup would be a problem - | ||
130 | this is part of the reason no STACKs were used, the other part of | ||
131 | the reason being I found them inappropriate). | ||
132 | |||
133 | (iv) ensure that all the built-in crypto was encapsulated by one of | ||
134 | these "ENGINE"s and that this engine was automatically selected as | ||
135 | the default. | ||
136 | |||
137 | (v) provide the minimum hooking possible in the existing crypto code | ||
138 | so that global functions (eg. RSA_public_encrypt) do not need any | ||
139 | extra parameter, yet will use whatever the current default ENGINE | ||
140 | for that RSA key is, and that the default can be set "per-key" | ||
141 | and globally (new keys will assume the global default, and keys | ||
142 | without their own default will be operated on using the global | ||
143 | default). NB: Try and make (v) conflict as little as possible with | ||
144 | (ii). :-) | ||
145 | |||
146 | (vi) wrap the ENGINE code up in duct tape so you can't even see the | ||
147 | corners. Ie. expose no structures at all, just black-box pointers. | ||
148 | |||
149 | (v) maintain internally a list of ENGINEs on which a calling | ||
150 | application can iterate, interrogate, etc. Allow a calling | ||
151 | application to hook in new ENGINEs, remove ENGINEs from the list, | ||
152 | and enforce uniqueness within the global list of each ENGINE's | ||
153 | "unique id". | ||
154 | |||
155 | (vi) keep reference counts for everything - eg. this includes storing a | ||
156 | reference inside each RSA structure to the ENGINE that it uses. | ||
157 | This is freed when the RSA structure is destroyed, or has its | ||
158 | ENGINE explicitly changed. The net effect needs to be that at any | ||
159 | time, it is deterministic to know whether an ENGINE is in use or | ||
160 | can be safely removed (or unloaded in the case of the other type | ||
161 | of reference) without invalidating function pointers that may or | ||
162 | may not be used indavertently in the future. This was actually | ||
163 | one of the biggest problems to overcome in the existing OpenSSL | ||
164 | code - implementations had always been assumed to be ever-present, | ||
165 | so there was no trivial way to get round this. | ||
166 | |||
167 | (vii) distinguish between structural references and functional | ||
168 | references. | ||
169 | |||
170 | A *little* detail | ||
171 | ----------------- | 2 | ----------------- |
172 | 3 | ||
173 | While my mind is on it; I'll illustrate the bit in item (vii). This idea | 4 | This "description" (if one chooses to call it that) needed some major updating |
174 | turned out to be very handy - the ENGINEs themselves need to be operated | 5 | so here goes. This update addresses a change being made at the same time to |
175 | on and manipulated simply as objects without necessarily trying to | 6 | OpenSSL, and it pretty much completely restructures the underlying mechanics of |
176 | "enable" them for use. Eg. most host machines will not have the necessary | 7 | the "ENGINE" code. So it serves a double purpose of being a "ENGINE internals |
177 | hardware or software to support all the engines one might compile into | 8 | for masochists" document *and* a rather extensive commit log message. (I'd get |
178 | OpenSSL, yet it needs to be possible to iterate across the ENGINEs, | 9 | lynched for sticking all this in CHANGES or the commit mails :-). |
179 | querying their names, properties, etc - all happening in a thread-safe | 10 | |
180 | manner that uses reference counts (if you imagine two threads iterating | 11 | ENGINE_TABLE underlies this restructuring, as described in the internal header |
181 | through a list and one thread removing the ENGINE the other is currently | 12 | "eng_int.h", implemented in eng_table.c, and used in each of the "class" files; |
182 | looking at - you can see the gotcha waiting to happen). For all of this, | 13 | tb_rsa.c, tb_dsa.c, etc. |
183 | *structural references* are used and operate much like the other reference | 14 | |
184 | counts in OpenSSL. | 15 | However, "EVP_CIPHER" underlies the motivation and design of ENGINE_TABLE so |
185 | 16 | I'll mention a bit about that first. EVP_CIPHER (and most of this applies | |
186 | The other kind of reference count is for *functional* references - these | 17 | equally to EVP_MD for digests) is both a "method" and a algorithm/mode |
187 | indicate a reference on which the caller can actually assume the | 18 | identifier that, in the current API, "lingers". These cipher description + |
188 | particular ENGINE to be initialised and usable to perform the operations | 19 | implementation structures can be defined or obtained directly by applications, |
189 | it implements. Any increment or decrement of the functional reference | 20 | or can be loaded "en masse" into EVP storage so that they can be catalogued and |
190 | count automatically invokes a corresponding change in the structural | 21 | searched in various ways, ie. two ways of encrypting with the "des_cbc" |
191 | reference count, as it is fairly obvious that a functional reference is a | 22 | algorithm/mode pair are; |
192 | restricted case of a structural reference. So struct_ref >= funct_ref at | 23 | |
193 | all times. NB: functional references are usually obtained by a call to | 24 | (i) directly; |
194 | ENGINE_init(), but can also be created implicitly by calls that require a | 25 | const EVP_CIPHER *cipher = EVP_des_cbc(); |
195 | new functional reference to be created, eg. ENGINE_set_default(). Either | 26 | EVP_EncryptInit(&ctx, cipher, key, iv); |
196 | way the only time the underlying ENGINE's "init" function is really called | 27 | [ ... use EVP_EncryptUpdate() and EVP_EncryptFinal() ...] |
197 | is when the (functional) reference count increases to 1, similarly the | 28 | |
198 | underlying "finish" handler is only called as the count goes down to 0. | 29 | (ii) indirectly; |
199 | The effect of this, for example, is that if you set the default ENGINE for | 30 | OpenSSL_add_all_ciphers(); |
200 | RSA operations to be "cswift", then its functional reference count will | 31 | cipher = EVP_get_cipherbyname("des_cbc"); |
201 | already be at least 1 so the CryptoSwift shared-library and the card will | 32 | EVP_EncryptInit(&ctx, cipher, key, iv); |
202 | stay loaded and initialised until such time as all RSA keys using the | 33 | [ ... etc ... ] |
203 | cswift ENGINE are changed or destroyed and the default ENGINE for RSA | 34 | |
204 | operations has been changed. This prevents repeated thrashing of init and | 35 | The latter is more generally used because it also allows ciphers/digests to be |
205 | finish handling if the count keeps getting down as far as zero. | 36 | looked up based on other identifiers which can be useful for automatic cipher |
206 | 37 | selection, eg. in SSL/TLS, or by user-controllable configuration. | |
207 | Otherwise, the way the ENGINE code has been put together I think pretty | 38 | |
208 | much reflects the above points. The reason for the ENGINE structure having | 39 | The important point about this is that EVP_CIPHER definitions and structures are |
209 | individual RSA_METHOD, DSA_METHOD, etc pointers is simply that it was the | 40 | passed around with impunity and there is no safe way, without requiring massive |
210 | easiest way to go about things for now, to hook it all into the raw | 41 | rewrites of many applications, to assume that EVP_CIPHERs can be reference |
211 | RSA,DSA,etc code, and I was trying to the keep the structure invisible | 42 | counted. One an EVP_CIPHER is exposed to the caller, neither it nor anything it |
212 | anyway so that the way this is internally managed could be easily changed | 43 | comes from can "safely" be destroyed. Unless of course the way of getting to |
213 | later on when we start to work out what's to be done about these other | 44 | such ciphers is via entirely distinct API calls that didn't exist before. |
214 | abstractions. | 45 | However existing API usage cannot be made to understand when an EVP_CIPHER |
215 | 46 | pointer, that has been passed to the caller, is no longer being used. | |
216 | Down the line, if some EVP-based technique emerges for adequately | 47 | |
217 | encapsulating algorithms and all their various bits and pieces, then I can | 48 | The other problem with the existing API w.r.t. to hooking EVP_CIPHER support |
218 | imagine that "ENGINE" would turn into a reference-counting database of | 49 | into ENGINE is storage - the OBJ_NAME-based storage used by EVP to register |
219 | these EVP things, of which the default "openssl" ENGINE would be the | 50 | ciphers simultaneously registers cipher *types* and cipher *implementations* - |
220 | library's own object database of pre-built software implemented algorithms | 51 | they are effectively the same thing, an "EVP_CIPHER" pointer. The problem with |
221 | (and such). It would also be cool to see the idea of "METHOD"s detached | 52 | hooking in ENGINEs is that multiple ENGINEs may implement the same ciphers. The |
222 | from the algorithms themselves ... so RSA, DSA, ElGamal, etc can all | 53 | solution is necessarily that ENGINE-provided ciphers simply are not registered, |
223 | expose essentially the same METHOD (aka interface), which would include | 54 | stored, or exposed to the caller in the same manner as existing ciphers. This is |
224 | any querying/flagging stuff to identify what the algorithm can/can't do, | 55 | especially necessary considering the fact ENGINE uses reference counts to allow |
225 | its name, and other stuff like max/min block sizes, key sizes, etc. This | 56 | for cleanup, modularity, and DSO support - yet EVP_CIPHERs, as exposed to |
226 | would result in ENGINE similarly detaching its internal database of | 57 | callers in the current API, support no such controls. |
227 | algorithm implementations from the function definitions that return | 58 | |
228 | interfaces to them. I think ... | 59 | Another sticking point for integrating cipher support into ENGINE is linkage. |
229 | 60 | Already there is a problem with the way ENGINE supports RSA, DSA, etc whereby | |
230 | As for DSOs etc. Well the DSO code is pretty handy (but could be made much | 61 | they are available *because* they're part of a giant ENGINE called "openssl". |
231 | more so) for loading vendor's driver-libraries and talking to them in some | 62 | Ie. all implementations *have* to come from an ENGINE, but we get round that by |
232 | generic way, but right now there's still big problems associated with | 63 | having a giant ENGINE with all the software support encapsulated. This creates |
233 | actually putting OpenSSL code (ie. new ENGINEs, or anything else for that | 64 | linker hassles if nothing else - linking a 1-line application that calls 2 basic |
234 | matter) in dynamically loadable libraries. These problems won't go away in | 65 | RSA functions (eg. "RSA_free(RSA_new());") will result in large quantities of |
235 | a hurry so I don't think we should expect to have any kind of | 66 | ENGINE code being linked in *and* because of that DSA, DH, and RAND also. If we |
236 | shared-library extensions any time soon - but solving the problems is a | 67 | continue with this approach for EVP_CIPHER support (even if it *was* possible) |
237 | good thing to aim for, and would as a side-effect probably help make | 68 | we would lose our ability to link selectively by selectively loading certain |
238 | OpenSSL more usable as a shared-library itself (looking at the things | 69 | implementations of certain functionality. Touching any part of any kind of |
239 | needed to do this will show you why). | 70 | crypto would result in massive static linkage of everything else. So the |
240 | 71 | solution is to change the way ENGINE feeds existing "classes", ie. how the | |
241 | One of the problems is that if you look at any of the ENGINE | 72 | hooking to ENGINE works from RSA, DSA, DH, RAND, as well as adding new hooking |
242 | implementations, eg. hw_cswift.c or hw_ncipher.c, you'll see how it needs | 73 | for EVP_CIPHER, and EVP_MD. |
243 | a variety of functionality and definitions from various areas of OpenSSL, | 74 | |
244 | including crypto/bn/, crypto/err/, crypto/ itself (locking for example), | 75 | The way this is now being done is by mostly reverting back to how things used to |
245 | crypto/dso/, crypto/engine/, crypto/rsa, etc etc etc. So if similar code | 76 | work prior to ENGINE :-). Ie. RSA now has a "RSA_METHOD" pointer again - this |
246 | were to be suctioned off into shared libraries, the shared libraries would | 77 | was previously replaced by an "ENGINE" pointer and all RSA code that required |
247 | either have to duplicate all the definitions and code and avoid loader | 78 | the RSA_METHOD would call ENGINE_get_RSA() each time on its ENGINE handle to |
248 | conflicts, or OpenSSL would have to somehow expose all that functionality | 79 | temporarily get and use the ENGINE's RSA implementation. Apart from being more |
249 | to the shared-library. If this isn't a big enough problem, the issue of | 80 | efficient, switching back to each RSA having an RSA_METHOD pointer also allows |
250 | binary compatibility will be - anyone writing Apache modules can tell you | 81 | us to conceivably operate with *no* ENGINE. As we'll see, this removes any need |
251 | that (Ralf? Ben? :-). However, I don't think OpenSSL would need to be | 82 | for a fallback ENGINE that encapsulates default implementations - we can simply |
252 | quite so forgiving as Apache should be, so OpenSSL could simply tell its | 83 | have our RSA structure pointing its RSA_METHOD pointer to the software |
253 | version to the DSO and leave the DSO with the problem of deciding whether | 84 | implementation and have its ENGINE pointer set to NULL. |
254 | to proceed or bail out for fear of binary incompatibilities. | 85 | |
255 | 86 | A look at the EVP_CIPHER hooking is most explanatory, the RSA, DSA (etc) cases | |
256 | Certainly one thing that would go a long way to addressing this is to | 87 | turn out to be degenerate forms of the same thing. The EVP storage of ciphers, |
257 | embark on a bit of an opaqueness mission. I've set the ENGINE code up with | 88 | and the existing EVP API functions that return "software" implementations and |
258 | this in mind - it's so draconian that even to declare your own ENGINE, you | 89 | descriptions remain untouched. However, the storage takes more meaning in terms |
259 | have to get the engine code to create the underlying ENGINE structure, and | 90 | of "cipher description" and less meaning in terms of "implementation". When an |
260 | then feed in the new ENGINE's function/method pointers through various | 91 | EVP_CIPHER_CTX is actually initialised with an EVP_CIPHER method and is about to |
261 | "set" functions. The more of the code that takes on such a black-box | 92 | begin en/decryption, the hooking to ENGINE comes into play. What happens is that |
262 | approach, the more of the code that will be (a) easy to expose to shared | 93 | cipher-specific ENGINE code is asked for an ENGINE pointer (a functional |
263 | libraries that need it, and (b) easy to expose to applications wanting to | 94 | reference) for any ENGINE that is registered to perform the algo/mode that the |
264 | use OpenSSL itself as a shared-library. From my own explorations in | 95 | provided EVP_CIPHER structure represents. Under normal circumstances, that |
265 | OpenSSL, the biggest leviathan I've seen that is a problem in this respect | 96 | ENGINE code will return NULL because no ENGINEs will have had any cipher |
266 | is the BIGNUM code. Trying to "expose" the bignum code through any kind of | 97 | implementations *registered*. As such, a NULL ENGINE pointer is stored in the |
267 | organised "METHODs", let alone do all the necessary bignum operations | 98 | EVP_CIPHER_CTX context, and the EVP_CIPHER structure is left hooked into the |
268 | solely through functions rather than direct access to the structures and | 99 | context and so is used as the implementation. Pretty much how things work now |
269 | macros, will be a massive pain in the "r"s. | 100 | except we'd have a redundant ENGINE pointer set to NULL and doing nothing. |
270 | 101 | ||
271 | Anyway, I'm done for now - hope it was readable. Thoughts? | 102 | Conversely, if an ENGINE *has* been registered to perform the algorithm/mode |
272 | 103 | combination represented by the provided EVP_CIPHER, then a functional reference | |
273 | Cheers, | 104 | to that ENGINE will be returned to the EVP_CIPHER_CTX during initialisation. |
274 | Geoff | 105 | That functional reference will be stored in the context (and released on |
275 | 106 | cleanup) - and having that reference provides a *safe* way to use an EVP_CIPHER | |
276 | 107 | definition that is private to the ENGINE. Ie. the EVP_CIPHER provided by the | |
277 | -----------------------------------==*==----------------------------------- | 108 | application will actually be replaced by an EVP_CIPHER from the registered |
109 | ENGINE - it will support the same algorithm/mode as the original but will be a | ||
110 | completely different implementation. Because this EVP_CIPHER isn't stored in the | ||
111 | EVP storage, nor is it returned to applications from traditional API functions, | ||
112 | there is no associated problem with it not having reference counts. And of | ||
113 | course, when one of these "private" cipher implementations is hooked into | ||
114 | EVP_CIPHER_CTX, it is done whilst the EVP_CIPHER_CTX holds a functional | ||
115 | reference to the ENGINE that owns it, thus the use of the ENGINE's EVP_CIPHER is | ||
116 | safe. | ||
117 | |||
118 | The "cipher-specific ENGINE code" I mentioned is implemented in tb_cipher.c but | ||
119 | in essence it is simply an instantiation of "ENGINE_TABLE" code for use by | ||
120 | EVP_CIPHER code. tb_digest.c is virtually identical but, of course, it is for | ||
121 | use by EVP_MD code. Ditto for tb_rsa.c, tb_dsa.c, etc. These instantiations of | ||
122 | ENGINE_TABLE essentially provide linker-separation of the classes so that even | ||
123 | if ENGINEs implement *all* possible algorithms, an application using only | ||
124 | EVP_CIPHER code will link at most code relating to EVP_CIPHER, tb_cipher.c, core | ||
125 | ENGINE code that is independant of class, and of course the ENGINE | ||
126 | implementation that the application loaded. It will *not* however link any | ||
127 | class-specific ENGINE code for digests, RSA, etc nor will it bleed over into | ||
128 | other APIs, such as the RSA/DSA/etc library code. | ||
129 | |||
130 | ENGINE_TABLE is a little more complicated than may seem necessary but this is | ||
131 | mostly to avoid a lot of "init()"-thrashing on ENGINEs (that may have to load | ||
132 | DSOs, and other expensive setup that shouldn't be thrashed unnecessarily) *and* | ||
133 | to duplicate "default" behaviour. Basically an ENGINE_TABLE instantiation, for | ||
134 | example tb_cipher.c, implements a hash-table keyed by integer "nid" values. | ||
135 | These nids provide the uniquenness of an algorithm/mode - and each nid will hash | ||
136 | to a potentially NULL "ENGINE_PILE". An ENGINE_PILE is essentially a list of | ||
137 | pointers to ENGINEs that implement that particular 'nid'. Each "pile" uses some | ||
138 | caching tricks such that requests on that 'nid' will be cached and all future | ||
139 | requests will return immediately (well, at least with minimal operation) unless | ||
140 | a change is made to the pile, eg. perhaps an ENGINE was unloaded. The reason is | ||
141 | that an application could have support for 10 ENGINEs statically linked | ||
142 | in, and the machine in question may not have any of the hardware those 10 | ||
143 | ENGINEs support. If each of those ENGINEs has a "des_cbc" implementation, we | ||
144 | want to avoid every EVP_CIPHER_CTX setup from trying (and failing) to initialise | ||
145 | each of those 10 ENGINEs. Instead, the first such request will try to do that | ||
146 | and will either return (and cache) a NULL ENGINE pointer or will return a | ||
147 | functional reference to the first that successfully initialised. In the latter | ||
148 | case it will also cache an extra functional reference to the ENGINE as a | ||
149 | "default" for that 'nid'. The caching is acknowledged by a 'uptodate' variable | ||
150 | that is unset only if un/registration takes place on that pile. Ie. if | ||
151 | implementations of "des_cbc" are added or removed. This behaviour can be | ||
152 | tweaked; the ENGINE_TABLE_FLAG_NOINIT value can be passed to | ||
153 | ENGINE_set_table_flags(), in which case the only ENGINEs that tb_cipher.c will | ||
154 | try to initialise from the "pile" will be those that are already initialised | ||
155 | (ie. it's simply an increment of the functional reference count, and no real | ||
156 | "initialisation" will take place). | ||
157 | |||
158 | RSA, DSA, DH, and RAND all have their own ENGINE_TABLE code as well, and the | ||
159 | difference is that they all use an implicit 'nid' of 1. Whereas EVP_CIPHERs are | ||
160 | actually qualitatively different depending on 'nid' (the "des_cbc" EVP_CIPHER is | ||
161 | not an interoperable implementation of "aes_256_cbc"), RSA_METHODs are | ||
162 | necessarily interoperable and don't have different flavours, only different | ||
163 | implementations. In other words, the ENGINE_TABLE for RSA will either be empty, | ||
164 | or will have a single ENGING_PILE hashed to by the 'nid' 1 and that pile | ||
165 | represents ENGINEs that implement the single "type" of RSA there is. | ||
166 | |||
167 | Cleanup - the registration and unregistration may pose questions about how | ||
168 | cleanup works with the ENGINE_PILE doing all this caching nonsense (ie. when the | ||
169 | application or EVP_CIPHER code releases its last reference to an ENGINE, the | ||
170 | ENGINE_PILE code may still have references and thus those ENGINEs will stay | ||
171 | hooked in forever). The way this is handled is via "unregistration". With these | ||
172 | new ENGINE changes, an abstract ENGINE can be loaded and initialised, but that | ||
173 | is an algorithm-agnostic process. Even if initialised, it will not have | ||
174 | registered any of its implementations (to do so would link all class "table" | ||
175 | code despite the fact the application may use only ciphers, for example). This | ||
176 | is deliberately a distinct step. Moreover, registration and unregistration has | ||
177 | nothing to do with whether an ENGINE is *functional* or not (ie. you can even | ||
178 | register an ENGINE and its implementations without it being operational, you may | ||
179 | not even have the drivers to make it operate). What actually happens with | ||
180 | respect to cleanup is managed inside eng_lib.c with the "engine_cleanup_***" | ||
181 | functions. These functions are internal-only and each part of ENGINE code that | ||
182 | could require cleanup will, upon performing its first allocation, register a | ||
183 | callback with the "engine_cleanup" code. The other part of this that makes it | ||
184 | tick is that the ENGINE_TABLE instantiations (tb_***.c) use NULL as their | ||
185 | initialised state. So if RSA code asks for an ENGINE and no ENGINE has | ||
186 | registered an implementation, the code will simply return NULL and the tb_rsa.c | ||
187 | state will be unchanged. Thus, no cleanup is required unless registration takes | ||
188 | place. ENGINE_cleanup() will simply iterate across a list of registered cleanup | ||
189 | callbacks calling each in turn, and will then internally delete its own storage | ||
190 | (a STACK). When a cleanup callback is next registered (eg. if the cleanup() is | ||
191 | part of a gracefull restart and the application wants to cleanup all state then | ||
192 | start again), the internal STACK storage will be freshly allocated. This is much | ||
193 | the same as the situation in the ENGINE_TABLE instantiations ... NULL is the | ||
194 | initialised state, so only modification operations (not queries) will cause that | ||
195 | code to have to register a cleanup. | ||
196 | |||
197 | What else? The bignum callbacks and associated ENGINE functions have been | ||
198 | removed for two obvious reasons; (i) there was no way to generalise them to the | ||
199 | mechanism now used by RSA/DSA/..., because there's no such thing as a BIGNUM | ||
200 | method, and (ii) because of (i), there was no meaningful way for library or | ||
201 | application code to automatically hook and use ENGINE supplied bignum functions | ||
202 | anyway. Also, ENGINE_cpy() has been removed (although an internal-only version | ||
203 | exists) - the idea of providing an ENGINE_cpy() function probably wasn't a good | ||
204 | one and now certainly doesn't make sense in any generalised way. Some of the | ||
205 | RSA, DSA, DH, and RAND functions that were fiddled during the original ENGINE | ||
206 | changes have now, as a consequence, been reverted back. This is because the | ||
207 | hooking of ENGINE is now automatic (and passive, it can interally use a NULL | ||
208 | ENGINE pointer to simply ignore ENGINE from then on). | ||
209 | |||
210 | Hell, that should be enough for now ... comments welcome: geoff@openssl.org | ||
278 | 211 | ||