25. ZUC Crypto Poll Mode Driver

The ZUC PMD (librte_crypto_zuc) provides poll mode crypto driver support for utilizing Intel IPSec Multi-buffer library which implements F8 and F9 functions for ZUC EEA3 cipher and EIA3 hash algorithms.

25.1. Features

ZUC PMD has support for:

Cipher algorithm:

  • RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_ZUC_EEA3

Authentication algorithm:

  • RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_ZUC_EIA3

Note

The latest v1.3 add ARM64 port of ipsec-mb library support ARM platform.

25.2. Limitations

  • Chained mbufs are not supported.
  • ZUC (EIA3) supported only if hash offset field is byte-aligned.
  • ZUC (EEA3) supported only if cipher length, cipher offset fields are byte-aligned.

25.3. ZUC PMD vs AESNI MB PMD

AESNI MB PMD also supports ZUC cipher and authentication algorithms. It is recommended to use the AESNI MB PMD, which offers better performance on Intel processors. Take a look at the PMD documentation (AES-NI Multi Buffer Crypto Poll Mode Driver) for more information.

25.4. Installation

To build DPDK with the ZUC_PMD the user is required to download the multi-buffer library and compile it on their user system before building DPDK.

For x86 system, the multi-buffer library is available here. The latest version of the library supported by this PMD is v1.5, which can be downloaded from https://github.com/01org/intel-ipsec-mb/archive/v1.5.zip.

For Arm system, ARM64 port of the multi-buffer library can be downloaded from https://gitlab.arm.com/arm-reference-solutions/ipsec-mb/-/tree/main/. The latest version of the library supported by this PMD is tagged as SECLIB-IPSEC-2024.03.12.

After downloading the library, the user needs to unpack and compile it on their system before building DPDK:

make
make install

The library requires NASM to be built on x86. Depending on the library version, it might require a minimum NASM version (e.g. v0.54 requires at least NASM 2.14).

NASM is packaged for different OS. However, on some OS the version is too old, so a manual installation is required. In that case, NASM can be downloaded from NASM website. Once it is downloaded, extract it and follow these steps:

./configure
make
make install

As a reference, the following table shows a mapping between the past DPDK versions and the external crypto libraries supported by them:

Table 25.1 DPDK and external crypto library version compatibility
DPDK version Crypto library version
20.02 - 21.08 Multi-buffer library 0.53 - 1.3
21.11+ Multi-buffer library 1.0 - 1.5

25.5. Initialization

In order to enable this virtual crypto PMD, user must:

  • Build the multi buffer library (explained in Installation section).

To use the PMD in an application, user must:

  • Call rte_vdev_init(“crypto_zuc”) within the application.
  • Use –vdev=”crypto_zuc” in the EAL options, which will call rte_vdev_init() internally.

The following parameters (all optional) can be provided in the previous two calls:

  • socket_id: Specify the socket where the memory for the device is going to be allocated (by default, socket_id will be the socket where the core that is creating the PMD is running on).
  • max_nb_queue_pairs: Specify the maximum number of queue pairs in the device (8 by default).
  • max_nb_sessions: Specify the maximum number of sessions that can be created (2048 by default).

Example:

./dpdk-l2fwd-crypto -l 1 -n 4 --vdev="crypto_zuc,socket_id=0,max_nb_sessions=128" \
-- -p 1 --cdev SW --chain CIPHER_ONLY --cipher_algo "zuc-eea3"