27. Security Library

The security library provides a framework for management and provisioning of security protocol operations offloaded to hardware based devices. The library defines generic APIs to create and free security sessions which can support full protocol offload as well as inline crypto operation with NIC or crypto devices. The framework currently only supports the IPsec, PDCP and DOCSIS protocols and associated operations, other protocols will be added in the future.

27.1. Design Principles

The security library provides an additional offload capability to an existing crypto device and/or ethernet device.

       +---------------+
       | rte_security  |
       +---------------+
         \            /
+-----------+    +--------------+
|  NIC PMD  |    |  CRYPTO PMD  |
+-----------+    +--------------+

Note

Currently, the security library does not support the case of multi-process. It will be updated in the future releases.

The supported offload types are explained in the sections below.

27.1.1. Inline Crypto

RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_INLINE_CRYPTO: The crypto processing for security protocol (e.g. IPsec) is processed inline during receive and transmission on NIC port. The flow based security action should be configured on the port.

Ingress Data path - The packet is decrypted in RX path and relevant crypto status is set in Rx descriptors. After the successful inline crypto processing the packet is presented to host as a regular Rx packet however all security protocol related headers are still attached to the packet. e.g. In case of IPsec, the IPsec tunnel headers (if any), ESP/AH headers will remain in the packet but the received packet contains the decrypted data where the encrypted data was when the packet arrived. The driver Rx path check the descriptors and based on the crypto status sets additional flags in the rte_mbuf.ol_flags field.

Note

The underlying device may not support crypto processing for all ingress packet matching to a particular flow (e.g. fragmented packets), such packets will be passed as encrypted packets. It is the responsibility of application to process such encrypted packets using other crypto driver instance.

Egress Data path - The software prepares the egress packet by adding relevant security protocol headers. Only the data will not be encrypted by the software. The driver will accordingly configure the tx descriptors. The hardware device will encrypt the data before sending the packet out.

Note

The underlying device may support post encryption TSO.

  Egress Data Path
         |
+--------|--------+
|  egress IPsec   |
|        |        |
| +------V------+ |
| | SADB lookup | |
| +------|------+ |
| +------V------+ |
| |   Tunnel    | |   <------ Add tunnel header to packet
| +------|------+ |
| +------V------+ |
| |     ESP     | |   <------ Add ESP header without trailer to packet
| |             | |   <------ Mark packet to be offloaded, add trailer
| +------|------+ |            meta-data to mbuf
+--------V--------+
         |
+--------V--------+
|    L2 Stack     |
+--------|--------+
         |
+--------V--------+
|                 |
|     NIC PMD     |   <------ Set hw context for inline crypto offload
|                 |
+--------|--------+
         |
+--------|--------+
|  HW ACCELERATED |   <------ Packet Encryption and
|        NIC      |           Authentication happens inline
|                 |
+-----------------+

27.1.2. Inline protocol offload

RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_INLINE_PROTOCOL: The crypto and protocol processing for security protocol (e.g. IPsec) is processed inline during receive and transmission. The flow based security action should be configured on the port.

Ingress Data path - The packet is decrypted in the RX path and relevant crypto status is set in the Rx descriptors. After the successful inline crypto processing the packet is presented to the host as a regular Rx packet but all security protocol related headers are optionally removed from the packet. e.g. in the case of IPsec, the IPsec tunnel headers (if any), ESP/AH headers will be removed from the packet and the received packet will contains the decrypted packet only. The driver Rx path checks the descriptors and based on the crypto status sets additional flags in rte_mbuf.ol_flags field. The driver would also set device-specific metadata in RTE_SECURITY_DYNFIELD_NAME field. This will allow the application to identify the security processing done on the packet.

Note

The underlying device in this case is stateful. It is expected that the device shall support crypto processing for all kind of packets matching to a given flow, this includes fragmented packets (post reassembly). E.g. in case of IPsec the device may internally manage anti-replay etc. It will provide a configuration option for anti-replay behavior i.e. to drop the packets or pass them to driver with error flags set in the descriptor.

Egress Data path - The software will send the plain packet without any security protocol headers added to the packet. The driver will configure the security index and other requirement in tx descriptors. The hardware device will do security processing on the packet that includes adding the relevant protocol headers and encrypting the data before sending the packet out. The software should make sure that the buffer has required head room and tail room for any protocol header addition. The software may also do early fragmentation if the resultant packet is expected to cross the MTU size. The software should also make sure that L2 header contents are updated with the final L2 header which is expected post IPsec processing as the IPsec offload will only update L3 and above in egress path.

Note

The underlying device will manage state information required for egress processing. E.g. in case of IPsec, the seq number will be added to the packet, however the device shall provide indication when the sequence number is about to overflow. The underlying device may support post encryption TSO.

 Egress Data Path
         |
+--------|--------+
|  egress IPsec   |
|        |        |
| +------V------+ |
| | SADB lookup | |
| +------|------+ |
| +------V------+ |
| |   Desc      | |   <------ Mark packet to be offloaded
| +------|------+ |
+--------V--------+
         |
+--------V--------+
|    L2 Stack     |
+--------|--------+
         |
+--------V--------+
|                 |
|     NIC PMD     |   <------ Set hw context for inline crypto offload
|                 |
+--------|--------+
         |
+--------|--------+
|  HW ACCELERATED |   <------ Add tunnel, ESP header etc header to
|        NIC      |           packet. Packet Encryption and
|                 |           Authentication happens inline.
+-----------------+

27.1.3. Lookaside protocol offload

RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL: This extends librte_cryptodev to support the programming of IPsec Security Association (SA) as part of a crypto session creation including the definition. In addition to standard crypto processing, as defined by the cryptodev, the security protocol processing is also offloaded to the crypto device.

Decryption: The packet is sent to the crypto device for security protocol processing. The device will decrypt the packet and it will also optionally remove additional security headers from the packet. E.g. in case of IPsec, IPsec tunnel headers (if any), ESP/AH headers will be removed from the packet and the decrypted packet may contain plain data only.

Note

In case of IPsec the device may internally manage anti-replay etc. It will provide a configuration option for anti-replay behavior i.e. to drop the packets or pass them to driver with error flags set in descriptor.

Encryption: The software will submit the packet to cryptodev as usual for encryption, the hardware device in this case will also add the relevant security protocol header along with encrypting the packet. The software should make sure that the buffer has required head room and tail room for any protocol header addition.

Note

In the case of IPsec, the seq number will be added to the packet, It shall provide an indication when the sequence number is about to overflow.

  Egress Data Path
         |
+--------|--------+
|  egress IPsec   |
|        |        |
| +------V------+ |
| | SADB lookup | |   <------ SA maps to cryptodev session
| +------|------+ |
| +------|------+ |
| |      \--------------------\
| |    Crypto   | |           |  <- Crypto processing through
| |      /----------------\   |     inline crypto PMD
| +------|------+ |       |   |
+--------V--------+       |   |
         |                |   |
+--------V--------+       |   |  create   <-- SA is added to hw
|    L2 Stack     |       |   |  inline       using existing create
+--------|--------+       |   |  session      sym session APIs
         |                |   |    |
+--------V--------+   +---|---|----V---+
|                 |   |   \---/    |   | <--- Add tunnel, ESP header etc
|     NIC PMD     |   |   INLINE   |   |      header to packet.Packet
|                 |   | CRYPTO PMD |   |      Encryption/Decryption and
+--------|--------+   +----------------+      Authentication happens
         |                                    inline.
+--------|--------+
|       NIC       |
+--------|--------+
         V

27.1.4. PDCP Flow Diagram

Based on 3GPP TS 36.323 Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) specification

Transmitting PDCP Entity          Receiving PDCP Entity
          |                                   ^
          |                       +-----------|-----------+
          V                       | In order delivery and |
+---------|----------+            | Duplicate detection   |
| Sequence Numbering |            |  (Data Plane only)    |
+---------|----------+            +-----------|-----------+
          |                                   |
+---------|----------+            +-----------|----------+
| Header Compression*|            | Header Decompression*|
| (Data-Plane only)  |            |   (Data Plane only)  |
+---------|----------+            +-----------|----------+
          |                                   |
+---------|-----------+           +-----------|----------+
| Integrity Protection|           |Integrity Verification|
| (Control Plane only)|           | (Control Plane only) |
+---------|-----------+           +-----------|----------+
+---------|-----------+            +----------|----------+
|     Ciphering       |            |     Deciphering     |
+---------|-----------+            +----------|----------+
+---------|-----------+            +----------|----------+
|   Add PDCP header   |            | Remove PDCP Header  |
+---------|-----------+            +----------|----------+
          |                                   |
          +----------------->>----------------+

Note

  • Header Compression and decompression are not supported currently.

Just like IPsec, in case of PDCP also header addition/deletion, cipher/ de-cipher, integrity protection/verification is done based on the action type chosen.

27.1.5. DOCSIS Protocol

The Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) support comprises the combination of encryption/decryption and CRC generation/verification, for use in a DOCSIS-MAC pipeline.

       Downlink                       Uplink
       --------                       ------

    Ethernet frame                Ethernet frame
   from core network              to core network
          |                              ^
          ~                              |
          |                              ~         ----+
          V                              |             |
+---------|----------+        +----------|---------+   |
|   CRC generation   |        |  CRC verification  |   |
+---------|----------+        +----------|---------+   |   combined
          |                              |             > Crypto + CRC
+---------|----------+        +----------|---------+   |
|     Encryption     |        |     Decryption     |   |
+---------|----------+        +----------|---------+   |
          |                              ^             |
          ~                              |         ----+
          |                              ~
          V                              |
     DOCSIS frame                  DOCSIS frame
    to Cable Modem               from Cable Modem

The encryption/decryption is a combination of CBC and CFB modes using either AES or DES algorithms as specified in the DOCSIS Security Specification (from DPDK lib_rtecryptodev perspective, these are RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES_DOCSISBPI and RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_DES_DOCSISBPI).

The CRC is Ethernet CRC-32 as specified in Ethernet/[ISO/IEC 8802-3].

Note

  • The offset and length of data for which CRC needs to be computed are specified via the auth offset and length fields of the rte_crypto_sym_op.
  • Other DOCSIS protocol functionality such as Header Checksum (HCS) calculation may be added in the future.

27.1.6. MACSEC Protocol

Media Access Control security (MACsec) provides point-to-point security on Ethernet links and is defined by IEEE standard 802.1AE. MACsec secures an Ethernet link for almost all traffic, including frames from the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), and other protocols that are not typically secured on an Ethernet link because of limitations with other security solutions.

         Receive                                                Transmit
         -------                                                --------

     Ethernet frame                                          Ethernet frame
      from network                                           towards network
            |                                                      ^
            ~                                                      |
            |                                                      ~
            V                                                      |
+-----------------------+      +------------------+      +-------------------------+
| Secure Frame Verify   |      | Cipher Suite(SA) |      | Secure Frame Generation |
+-----------------------+<-----+------------------+----->+-------------------------+
| SecTAG + ICV remove   |      |  SECY   |   SC   |      | SecTAG + ICV Added      |
+---+-------------------+      +------------------+      +-------------------------+
            |                                                      ^
            |                                                      |
            V                                                      |
    Packet to Core/App                                     Packet from Core/App

To configure MACsec on an inline NIC device or a lookaside crypto device, a security association (SA) and a secure channel (SC) are created before creating rte_security session.

SA is created using API rte_security_macsec_sa_create which allows setting SA keys, salt, SSCI, packet number (PN) into the PMD, and the API returns a handle which can be used to map it with a secure channel, using the API rte_security_macsec_sc_create. Same SAs can be used for multiple SCs. The Rx SC will need a set of 4 SAs for each of the association numbers (AN). For Tx SC a single SA is set which will be used by hardware to process the packet.

The API rte_security_macsec_sc_create returns a handle for SC, and this handle is set in rte_security_macsec_xform to create a MACsec session using rte_security_session_create.

27.1.7. TLS-Record Protocol

The Transport Layer Protocol provides communications security over the Internet. The protocol allows client/server applications to communicate in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery.

TLS protocol is composed of two layers: the TLS Record Protocol and the TLS Handshake Protocol. At the lowest level, layered on top of some reliable transport protocol (e.g., TCP), is the TLS Record Protocol. The TLS Record Protocol provides connection security that has two basic properties:

  • The connection is private. Symmetric cryptography is used for data encryption (e.g., AES, DES, etc.). The keys for this symmetric encryption are generated uniquely for each connection and are based on a secret negotiated during TLS Handshake Protocol. The Record Protocol can also be used without encryption.
  • The connection is reliable. Message transport includes a message integrity check using a keyed MAC. Secure hash functions (e.g., SHA-1, etc.) are used for MAC computations. The Record Protocol can operate without a MAC when it is being used as a transport for negotiating security parameters by another protocol.
      Record Write                   Record Read
      ------------                   -----------

      TLSPlaintext                  TLSCiphertext
           |                              |
           ~                              ~
           |                              |
           V                              V
+----------|-----------+       +----------|-----------+
| Generate sequence no.|       | Generate sequence no.|
+----------|-----------+       +----------------------+
           |                   |    AR check (DTLS)   |
+----------|-----------+       +----------|-----------+
|  Insert TLS header   |                  |
|     & trailer.       |       +----------|-----------+
| (including padding)  |       | Decrypt & MAC verify |
+----------|-----------+       +----------|-----------+
           |                              |
 +---------|-----------+       +----------|-----------+
 |    MAC generate &   |       |  Remove TLS header   |
 |      Encrypt        |       |      & trailer.      |
 +---------|-----------+       | (including padding)  |
           |                   +----------|-----------+
           |                              |
           ~                              ~
           |                              |
           V                              V
     TLSCiphertext                  TLSPlaintext

TLS and DTLS header formation (in record write operation) would depend on type of content. It is a per packet variable and would need to be handled by the same session. Application may pass this info to a cryptodev performing lookaside protocol offload by passing the same in rte_crypto_op.param1.

In record read operation, application is required to preserve any info it may need from the TLS/DTLS header (such as content type and sequence number) as the cryptodev would remove the header and padding as part of the lookaside protocol processing. With TLS 1.3, the actual content type is part of the trailer (before padding) and would be stripped by the PMD. For applications that may need this info, PMD would return the value in rte_crypto_op.param1 field.

27.1.7.1. Supported Versions

  • TLS 1.2
  • TLS 1.3
  • DTLS 1.2

27.2. Device Features and Capabilities

27.2.1. Device Capabilities For Security Operations

The device (crypto or ethernet) capabilities which support security operations, are defined by the security action type, security protocol, protocol capabilities and corresponding crypto capabilities for security. For the full scope of the Security capability see definition of rte_security_capability structure in the DPDK API Reference.

struct rte_security_capability;

Each driver (crypto or ethernet) defines its own private array of capabilities for the operations it supports. Below is an example of the capabilities for a PMD which supports the IPsec and PDCP protocol.

static const struct rte_security_capability pmd_security_capabilities[] = {
    { /* IPsec Lookaside Protocol offload ESP Tunnel Egress */
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_IPSEC,
            .ipsec = {
                    .proto = RTE_SECURITY_IPSEC_SA_PROTO_ESP,
                    .mode = RTE_SECURITY_IPSEC_SA_MODE_TUNNEL,
                    .direction = RTE_SECURITY_IPSEC_SA_DIR_EGRESS,
                    .options = { 0 }
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = pmd_capabilities
    },
    { /* IPsec Lookaside Protocol offload ESP Tunnel Ingress */
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_IPSEC,
            .ipsec = {
                    .proto = RTE_SECURITY_IPSEC_SA_PROTO_ESP,
                    .mode = RTE_SECURITY_IPSEC_SA_MODE_TUNNEL,
                    .direction = RTE_SECURITY_IPSEC_SA_DIR_INGRESS,
                    .options = { 0 }
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = pmd_capabilities
    },
    { /* PDCP Lookaside Protocol offload Data Plane */
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_PDCP,
            .pdcp = {
                    .domain = RTE_SECURITY_PDCP_MODE_DATA,
                    .capa_flags = 0
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = pmd_capabilities
    },
    { /* PDCP Lookaside Protocol offload Control */
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_PDCP,
            .pdcp = {
                    .domain = RTE_SECURITY_PDCP_MODE_CONTROL,
                    .capa_flags = 0
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = pmd_capabilities
    },
    { /* PDCP Lookaside Protocol offload short MAC-I */
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_PDCP,
            .pdcp = {
                    .domain = RTE_SECURITY_PDCP_MODE_SHORT_MAC,
                    .capa_flags = 0
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = pmd_capabilities
    },
    {
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_NONE
    }
};
static const struct rte_cryptodev_capabilities pmd_capabilities[] = {
    {    /* SHA1 HMAC */
        .op = RTE_CRYPTO_OP_TYPE_SYMMETRIC,
        .sym = {
            .xform_type = RTE_CRYPTO_SYM_XFORM_AUTH,
            .auth = {
                .algo = RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_SHA1_HMAC,
                .block_size = 64,
                .key_size = {
                    .min = 64,
                    .max = 64,
                    .increment = 0
                },
                .digest_size = {
                    .min = 12,
                    .max = 12,
                    .increment = 0
                },
                .aad_size = { 0 },
                .iv_size = { 0 }
            }
        }
    },
    {    /* AES CBC */
        .op = RTE_CRYPTO_OP_TYPE_SYMMETRIC,
        .sym = {
            .xform_type = RTE_CRYPTO_SYM_XFORM_CIPHER,
            .cipher = {
                .algo = RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES_CBC,
                .block_size = 16,
                .key_size = {
                    .min = 16,
                    .max = 32,
                    .increment = 8
                },
                .iv_size = {
                    .min = 16,
                    .max = 16,
                    .increment = 0
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Below is an example of the capabilities for a PMD which supports the DOCSIS protocol.

static const struct rte_security_capability pmd_security_capabilities[] = {
    { /* DOCSIS Uplink */
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_DOCSIS,
            .docsis = {
                    .direction = RTE_SECURITY_DOCSIS_UPLINK
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = pmd_capabilities
    },
    { /* DOCSIS Downlink */
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_DOCSIS,
            .docsis = {
                    .direction = RTE_SECURITY_DOCSIS_DOWNLINK
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = pmd_capabilities
    },
    {
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_NONE
    }
};
static const struct rte_cryptodev_capabilities pmd_capabilities[] = {
    {    /* AES DOCSIS BPI */
        .op = RTE_CRYPTO_OP_TYPE_SYMMETRIC,
        .sym = {
            .xform_type = RTE_CRYPTO_SYM_XFORM_CIPHER,
            .cipher = {
                .algo = RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES_DOCSISBPI,
                .block_size = 16,
                .key_size = {
                    .min = 16,
                    .max = 32,
                    .increment = 16
                },
                .iv_size = {
                    .min = 16,
                    .max = 16,
                    .increment = 0
                }
            }
        }
    },

    RTE_CRYPTODEV_END_OF_CAPABILITIES_LIST()
};

Below is the example PMD capability for MACsec

static const struct rte_security_capability pmd_security_capabilities[] = {
    {
            .action = RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_INLINE_PROTOCOL,
            .protocol = RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_MACSEC,
            .macsec = {
                    .mtu = 1500,
                    .alg = RTE_SECURITY_MACSEC_ALG_GCM_128,
                    .max_nb_sc = 64,
                    .max_nb_sa = 128,
                    .max_nb_sess = 64,
                    .replay_win_sz = 4096,
                    .relative_sectag_insert = 1,
                    .fixed_sectag_insert = 1,
                    .icv_include_da_sa = 1,
                    .ctrl_port_enable = 1,
                    .preserve_sectag = 1,
                    .preserve_icv = 1,
                    .validate_frames = 1,
                    .re_key = 1,
                    .anti_replay = 1,
            },
            .crypto_capabilities = NULL,
    },
};

27.2.2. Capabilities Discovery

Discovering the features and capabilities of a driver (crypto/ethernet) is achieved through the rte_security_capabilities_get() function.

const struct rte_security_capability *rte_security_capabilities_get(uint16_t id);

This allows the user to query a specific driver and get all device security capabilities. It returns an array of rte_security_capability structures which contains all the capabilities for that device.

27.2.3. Security Session Create/Free

Security Sessions are created to store the immutable fields of a particular Security Association for a particular protocol which is defined by a security session configuration structure which is used in the operation processing of a packet flow. Sessions are used to manage protocol specific information as well as crypto parameters. Security sessions cache this immutable data in a optimal way for the underlying PMD and this allows further acceleration of the offload of Crypto workloads.

The Security framework provides APIs to create and free sessions for crypto/ethernet devices, where sessions are mempool objects. It is the application’s responsibility to create and manage two session mempools - one for session and other for session private data. The private session data mempool object size should be able to accommodate the driver’s private data of security session. The application can get the size of session private data using API rte_security_session_get_size. And the session mempool object size should be enough to accommodate rte_security_session.

Once the session mempools have been created, rte_security_session_create() is used to allocate and initialize a session for the required crypto/ethernet device.

Session APIs need an opaque handle to identify the crypto/ethernet security ops. This parameter can be retrieved using the APIs rte_cryptodev_get_sec_ctx() (for crypto device) or rte_eth_dev_get_sec_ctx (for ethernet port).

Sessions already created can be updated with rte_security_session_update().

When a session is no longer used, the user must call rte_security_session_destroy() to free the driver private session data and return the memory back to the mempool.

For look aside protocol offload to hardware crypto device, the rte_crypto_op created by the application is attached to the security session by the API rte_security_attach_session().

For Inline Crypto and Inline protocol offload, device specific defined metadata is updated in the mbuf using rte_security_set_pkt_metadata() if RTE_ETH_TX_OFFLOAD_SEC_NEED_MDATA is set.

Note

In case of inline processed packets, RTE_SECURITY_DYNFIELD_NAME field would be used by the driver to relay information on the security processing associated with the packet. In ingress, the driver would set this in Rx path while in egress, rte_security_set_pkt_metadata() would perform a similar operation. The application is expected not to modify the field when it has relevant info. For ingress, this device-specific 64 bit value is required to derive other information (like userdata), required for identifying the security processing done on the packet.

27.2.4. Security session configuration

Security Session configuration structure is defined as rte_security_session_conf

struct rte_security_session_conf {
	enum rte_security_session_action_type action_type;
	/**< Type of action to be performed on the session */
	enum rte_security_session_protocol protocol;
	/**< Security protocol to be configured */
	union {
		struct rte_security_ipsec_xform ipsec;
		struct rte_security_macsec_xform macsec;
		struct rte_security_pdcp_xform pdcp;
		struct rte_security_docsis_xform docsis;
		struct rte_security_tls_record_xform tls_record;
	};
	/**< Configuration parameters for security session */
	struct rte_crypto_sym_xform *crypto_xform;
	/**< Security Session Crypto Transformations. NULL in case of MACsec. */
	void *userdata;
	/**< Application specific userdata to be saved with session */
};

The configuration structure reuses the rte_crypto_sym_xform struct for crypto related configuration. The rte_security_session_action_type struct is used to specify whether the session is configured for Lookaside Protocol offload or Inline Crypto or Inline Protocol Offload.

enum rte_security_session_action_type {
	RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_NONE,
	/**< No security actions */
	RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_INLINE_CRYPTO,
	/**< Crypto processing for security protocol is processed inline
	 * during transmission
	 */
	RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_INLINE_PROTOCOL,
	/**< All security protocol processing is performed inline during
	 * transmission
	 */
	RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_LOOKASIDE_PROTOCOL,
	/**< All security protocol processing including crypto is performed
	 * on a lookaside accelerator
	 */
	RTE_SECURITY_ACTION_TYPE_CPU_CRYPTO
	/**< Similar to ACTION_TYPE_NONE but crypto processing for security
	 * protocol is processed synchronously by a CPU.
	 */
};

The rte_security_session_protocol is defined as

enum rte_security_session_protocol {
	RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_IPSEC = 1,
	/**< IPsec Protocol */
	RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_MACSEC,
	/**< MACSec Protocol */
	RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_PDCP,
	/**< PDCP Protocol */
	RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_DOCSIS,
	/**< DOCSIS Protocol */
	RTE_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_TLS_RECORD,
	/**< TLS Record Protocol */
};

IPsec related configuration parameters are defined in rte_security_ipsec_xform

MACsec related configuration parameters are defined in rte_security_macsec_xform

PDCP related configuration parameters are defined in rte_security_pdcp_xform

DOCSIS related configuration parameters are defined in rte_security_docsis_xform

TLS record related configuration parameters are defined in rte_security_tls_record_xform

27.2.5. Security API

The rte_security Library API is described in the DPDK API Reference document.

27.2.6. Flow based Security Session

In the case of NIC based offloads, the security session specified in the ‘rte_flow_action_security’ must be created on the same port as the flow action that is being specified.

The ingress/egress flow attribute should match that specified in the security session if the security session supports the definition of the direction.

Multiple flows can be configured to use the same security session. For example if the security session specifies an egress IPsec/MACsec SA, then multiple flows can be specified to that SA. In the case of an ingress IPsec SA then it is only valid to have a single flow to map to that security session.

 Configuration Path
         |
+--------|--------+
|    Add/Remove   |
| IPsec/MACsec SA |   <------ Build security flow action of
|        |        |           IPsec/MACsec transform
|--------|--------|
         |
+--------V--------+
|   Flow API      |
+--------|--------+
         |
+--------V--------+
|                 |
|     NIC PMD     |   <------ Add/Remove SA to/from hw context
|                 |
+--------|--------+
         |
+--------|--------+
|  HW ACCELERATED |
|        NIC      |
|                 |
+--------|--------+
  • Add/Delete IPsec SA flow: To add a new inline SA construct a rte_flow_item for Ethernet + IP + ESP using the SA selectors and the rte_security_ipsec_xform as the rte_flow_action. Note that any rte_flow_items may be empty, which means it is not checked.
In its most basic form, IPsec flow specification is as follows:
    +-------+     +----------+    +--------+    +-----+
    |  Eth  | ->  |   IP4/6  | -> |   ESP  | -> | END |
    +-------+     +----------+    +--------+    +-----+

However, the API can represent, IPsec crypto offload with any encapsulation:
    +-------+            +--------+    +-----+
    |  Eth  | ->  ... -> |   ESP  | -> | END |
    +-------+            +--------+    +-----+
  • Add/Delete MACsec SA flow: To add a new inline SA construct a rte_flow_item for Ethernet + SecTAG using the SA selectors and the rte_security_macsec_xform as the rte_flow_action. Note that any rte_flow_items may be empty, which means it is not checked.
In its most basic form, MACsec flow specification is as follows:
    +-------+     +----------+     +-----+
    |  Eth  | ->  |  SecTag  |  -> | END |
    +-------+     +----------+     +-----+

However, the API can represent, MACsec offload with any encapsulation:
    +-------+            +--------+    +-----+
    |  Eth  | ->  ... -> | SecTag | -> | END |
    +-------+            +--------+    +-----+

27.3. Telemetry support

The Security library has support for displaying Crypto device information with respect to its Security capabilities. Telemetry commands that can be used are shown below.

  1. Get the list of available Crypto devices by ID, that supports Security features:

    --> /security/cryptodev/list
    {"/security/cryptodev/list": [0, 1, 2, 3]}
    
  2. Get the security capabilities of a Crypto device:

    --> /security/cryptodev/sec_caps,0
        {"/security/cryptodev/sec_caps": {"sec_caps": [<array of serialized bytes of
        capabilities>], "sec_caps_n": <number of capabilities>}}
    
  1. Get the security crypto capabilities of a Crypto device:

    --> /security/cryptodev/crypto_caps,0,0
        {"/security/cryptodev/crypto_caps": {"crypto_caps": [<array of serialized bytes of
        capabilities>], "crypto_caps_n": <number of capabilities>}}
    

For more information on how to use the Telemetry interface, see the DPDK Telemetry User Guide.