From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 18 19:10:19 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D7FFC16A400 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:10:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bms@spc.org) Received: from mindfull.spc.org (mindfull.spc.org [83.167.185.3]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 73E1043D46 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:10:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from bms@spc.org) Received: from arginine.spc.org ([83.167.185.2]) by mindfull.spc.org with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.52) id 1FVvaW-0004u0-9j; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:10:12 +0100 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by arginine.spc.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55CAB6538B; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:10:16 +0100 (BST) Received: from arginine.spc.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (arginine.spc.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 70738-05; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:10:15 +0100 (BST) Received: by arginine.spc.org (Postfix, from userid 1078) id 5C16665499; Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:10:15 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:10:15 +0100 From: Bruce M Simpson To: Dave Cornejo Message-ID: <20060418191015.GE28496@spc.org> Mail-Followup-To: Bruce M Simpson , Dave Cornejo , freebsd-net@freebsd.org References: <200604180244.k3I2icZj076600@white.dogwood.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200604180244.k3I2icZj076600@white.dogwood.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Organization: Incunabulum X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - mindfull.spc.org X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - freebsd.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - spc.org X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: Cc: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: crypto accelerators X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:10:19 -0000 On Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 04:44:38PM -1000, Dave Cornejo wrote: > So the question is whether these cards, regardless of their affect on > throughput, increase usable CPU cycles? I have several Soekris 1401 > cards and am wondering if there would be any point to putting them > into some machines that provide logins over ssh. These machines are > generally pretty good spec, 2.4GHz+, 1GB RAM, Intel MBs, mostly > on-board peripherals. Given that spec of machine, I don't see that a hardware cipher would offer much improvement -- and some of the available crypto accelerators don't perform Diffie-Helmann or AES, some do. I myself have a ubsec(4) card, and even when I hacked OpenSSH to use OpenSSL engine support by default (with someone else's patch), I didn't see that much improvement (even when I forced the use of MD5, RSA and 3DES). I could be wrong though - the above is qualitative not quantitative. Regards, BMS