What is it ?

The Security System (SS for short) is a hardware cryptographic accelerator that supports AES/MD5/SHA1/DES/3DES/PRNG algorithms.
For later SoCs, the device was renamed to Crypto Engine (CE for short).
It could be found on Allwinner SoCs and could be split in three groups:

A20, A10, A10s, A13, A31, A33 are handled by the first driver sun4i-ss.
It is the first generation of SS and support both DMA and PIO mode. The driver support only PIO mode, since DMA is too slow (speed/10).
A80, A83T are the second generation of SS. It is a two stream Crypto Accelerator with mode functions then 1st SS (SHA224/SHA256/RSA) There are handled by the sun8i-ss driver.
H3, H5, H6, R40 and A64 have the third generation of SS (renamed to CE). It is a 4 stream Crypto Accelerator with more functions (SHA384/SHA512/RSA4096/ECC) There are handled by the sun8i-ce driver.
D1 even if it is RISCV, use the same IP than H6 and is handled by the sun8i-ce driver.

See the Support overview for more details

I handle lot of other crypto driver, you could find them in https://kernel.montjoie.ovh/

News

15/08/2022

Added D1 in status matrix. Added the HMAC-sha1 being handled by sun8i-ss.

18/12/2020

Both sun8i-ss and sun8i-ce was merged for 5.5. Support for RNGs are added in 5.10. Support for RSA is on good way.

09/11/2016

I have updated a bit the status matrix with some (bad) news.
Due to lack of documentation, support of RSA acceleration is stalled. Worstly, H5 CryptoEngine is the same as H3/A64 witout RSA. Does they find it buggy ?
The TRNG is not random at all, user manual give some prerequisite for A83T but not for other platform, so TRNG does not work for the moment.
Anyway, the sun8i-ce driver progress and work (but with some crap). You can find it on my github.

19/05/2016

The work on the H3 Crypto Engine is progressing well. Since A64 have the same IP block, it will be supported soon.
The only bad news is the removal of all RSA in the last H3 usermanual for an unknown reason.

16/09/2015

The sun4i-ss driver has reached the 4.3 release.
Edit: due to external patch added in the rc process, the sun4i-ss in current 4.3 will fail to load with "Failed to load md5".
The patch solving the problem could be found at https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/11/16/46

20/07/2015

The sun4i-ss driver has been accepted for mainline, reaching probably the 4.3 stable release.
Now it is time to work on the DMA.

Status

The sun4i-ss driver has been accepted for mainline, reaching the 4.3 stable release.
The sun8i-ss driver has been accepted for mainline, reaching the 5.5.
The sun8i-ce driver has been accepted for mainline, reaching the 5.5.
For the other drivers, you can find the latest develoment patchs here: Allwinner Security System dev patchs

PRNG and TRNG status

The sun4i-ss PRNG will be present on 4.14. You need libkcapi to use it via kcapi-rng tool.
The sun8i-ss PRNG is working and will be mainlined with the whole sun8i-ss driver. The sun8i-ce PRNG is not working due to the hardware.

The only TRNG which work is the h6's one. Other are simply not enough random.

sun4i-ss DMA

The sun4i-ss support both DMA and PIO mode.
For the moment only PIO mode is working since DMA engine driver was not ready at the beginning of developement
But now, the DMA engine driver is in mainline since 4.3 and the DMA support is being written.
The SS DMA support is availlable on my Linux repository.
But the performance drop dramaticaly with it. (expect a division by 10)

Support overview

Driver

sun4i-ss

sun8i-ss

sun8i-ce

Category

Name

A20

A10

A10s

A31

A33

A80

A83T

R40

A64

Note

AES/DES/3DES

CBC

4.3

5.5

6.x

ECB

4.3

5.5

6.x

CTS

NO (1)(2)

WIP

(1)(2)

CTR

NO (1)(3)

WIP

(1)(3)

OFB

WIP

CFB

WIP

CBC-MAC

WIP

XTS

HASH

MD5

4.3

5.10

6.x

SHA1

4.3

5.10

6.x

RNG

PRNG

4.14

5.10

6.x

(8)

TRNG

??(10)

5.10

6.x

RSA

512

WIP

SNW (9)

WIP

1024

WIP

SNW (9)

WIP

2048

WIP

SNW (9)

WIP

3072

WIP

SNW (9)

SNW

WIP

4096

SNW (9)

SNW

WIP

ECC

160

WIP

224

WIP

256

WIP

384

WIP

521

WIP

HASH

SHA224

5.10

6.x

SHA256

5.10

6.x

SHA384

5.10

6.x

SHA512

5.10

6.x

HMAC-SHA1

5.19

WIP

HMAC-SHA256

WIP

CRC

CRC32

WIP

Note

(7)

(5)

(6)

Legend:

4.3	support is available since Linux x
OK	Support is written and will be soon be sent for mainline
OK	support is written but work/cleaning is needed to made it mainlinable
WIP	support is being written
NT	Need hardware for testing
SNW	Unsupported according to datasheet, but work. (Need extended testing)
NO	support is not written
5.x	support is done via some software fallback (like HMAC using only hw hash)

Read the datahseet for more details.
Note:

(1): CTR and CTS are not available due to hardware bug see this answer on linux-crypto
(2): CTS block mode is not available for DES/3DES according to datasheet
(3): CTR mode is referenced as CNT mode in the datasheet
(7): The PRNG does not seem to work on A10 for the moment
(8): See the PRNG section
(9): Allwinner have removed all RSA documentation from the H3 user manual 1.2
(10): The TRNG is not really random due do lack of documentation

Using the hardware accelerator

Testing

First you need to be sure that the driver is loaded
You can check its presence by checking:

cat /proc/crypto
...[snip]...
name : cbc(des3_ede)
driver : cbc-des3-sunxi-ss
module : sunxi_ss
priority : 400
refcnt : 1
selftest : passed
type : ablkcipher
async : yes
blocksize : 8
min keysize : 24
max keysize : 24
ivsize : 8
geniv : <default>
...[snip]...

For each algorithm, you must see it in the list (driver xxx-sunxi-ss)

You can check that everything is working with the tcrypt module.
The tcrypt module always exits with an error.
You need to dig dmesg for finding if algorithms handled by the Security System work

modprobe tcrypt
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'tcrypt': Unknown error 156
dmesg |grep -iE 'cbc(aes)|md5|sha1'

cryptodev

The cryptodev module could be found at http://cryptodev-linux.org/
It creates a /dev/crypto which could be used by user space applications
See my bencher for an example of how to use it

AF_ALG

The AF_ALG is already in mainline kernel
You need the following options in you .config
CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API
CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_HASH
CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_SKCIPHER
See my bencher for an example of how to use it

Openssl engine

you need to use an engine that supports AF_ALG or cryptodev.

Openssl cryptodev engine

The engine is already included in openssl releases.
Warning: I hit a bug that makes sshd impossible. See my bug report

Openssl AF_ALG engine

The engine could be found here openssl AF_ALG engine

Bench

For each bench, 50000 requests are made
Request size is in bytes
The number given for generic implementations and SS driver are in requests per second.

Hash benchs

WARNING: The following bench are only for sun4i-ss. And they are old.

SHA1

	cryptodev			AF_ALG
request size	Generic	with SS	percent gain	Generic	with SS	percent gain
16	11534,192383	11775,84668	2,0951124186
32	11212,577148	12042,899414	7,4052758348
64	10893,463867	11760,001953	7,9546606716
128	10849,072266	11671,621094	7,5817434692
256	10588,62793	11489,490234	8,5078284926
512	10149,611328	11127,267578	9,6324501344
1024	9322,805664	10475,892578	12,3684538277
2048	7978,554688	9399,703125	17,8121037277
4096	6232,247559	7830,920898	25,6516340833
8192	4292,581543	5803,837891	35,206235056
16384	2644,959717	3851,314941	45,6095877849
32768	1515,654175	2316,668213	52,8493934311
65536	818,968262	1290,18396	57,537723971
131072	426,400452	682,471741	60,0541786011
262144	217,336731	351,436218	61,7012533422
524288	110,03344	178,394211	62,1272687648
1048576	55,533035	89,905128	61,8948577185
2097152	27,838724	45,077995	61,9255070742

MD5

request size	Generic	with SS	percent gain
16	12198,157227	12076,533203	-0,9970688337
32	12163,472656	11529,570312	-5,2115243889
64	12063,032227	11389,09375	-5,586808228
128	11929,520508	11271,333984	-5,5172923636
256	11676,336914	11109,584961	-4,8538506312
512	11295,496094	10807,859375	-4,317089882
1024	10529,985352	10278,543945	-2,387860938
2048	9287,404297	9351,836914	0,6937634557
4096	7526,553223	7902,242188	4,9915140951
8192	5405,458984	5944,568848	9,9734336269
16384	3458,681396	4020,386475	16,2404400605
32768	2039,627197	2461,080811	20,6632670235
65536	1119,260864	1390,037354	24,192437948
131072	589,458008	740,429871	25,6119793015
262144	302,136932	383,033844	26,7749167454
524288	153,233093	194,945908	27,2218058014
1048576	77,274544	98,332794	27,2512122491
2097152	38,812077	49,458996	27,4319743311

Cipher Benchs

AES

CBC 128

	cryptodev					AF_ALG
request size	Generic	SS	gain	SS with DMA	gain	Generic	with SS	gain	SS with DMA	gain
16	93942.49	75686.47	-19.44	5945.97	-93.68	5986.37	6284.60	4.98	3046.07	-49.12
32	87545.74	72785.50	-16.87	8582.14	-90.20	6432.35	6711.40	4.33	3895.02	-39.45
64	75886.35	67811.78	-10.65	8127.22	-89.30	6330.03	6758.03	6.76	3797.35	-40.02
128	61437.13	58713.69	-4.44	7624.93	-87.59	6246.05	6626.59	6.09	3677.93	-41.12
256	44907.49	47301.45	5.33	7199.11	-83.97	6018.04	6431.07	6.86	3545.20	-41.10
512	29311.75	33659.83	14.83	6516.44	-77.77	5620.59	6107.01	8.65	2968.84	-47.18
1024	17160.31	21352.46	24.42	5632.50	-67.18	4921.62	5490.10	11.55	3149.22	-36.02
2048	9414.33	12371.33	31.40	4401.97	-53.25	3975.93	4600.51	15.70	2154.77	-45.81
4096	4728.22	6310.10	33.45	2170.19	-54.11	2724.88	3409.93	25.14	1402.05	-48.55
8192	2436.20	3299.57	35.43	1414.79	-41.93	1720.89	2243.90	30.39	1113.95	-35.27
16384	1239.12	1691.91	36.54	830.46	-32.98	986.41	1344.77	36.32	689.55	-30.10
32768	624.45	856.40	37.14	457.24	-26.78	537.32	690.83	28.56	406.44	-24.36
65536	313.52	430.69	37.37	236.97	-24.42	280.16	381.77	36.27	217.17	-22.49
131072	157.21	218.36	38.89	117.20	-25.46	131.51	195.69	48.80	116.08	-11.74
262144	78.67	109.91	39.71	60.80	-22.72	72.61	100.03	37.76	58.35	-19.63
524288	38.53	54.42	41.20	30.98	-19.61	36.63	50.68	38.36	29.97	-18.19
1048576	19.43	27.49	41.45	15.20	-21.80	18.21	25.57	40.36	15.57	-14.50

CBC 192

request size	Generic	with SS	percent gain
16	54887,21875	53323,664062	-2,8486680936
32	52201,914062	51708,300781	-0,9455846397
64	47370,367188	49170,386719	3,7998851135
128	39986,167969	44686,335938	11,7544846324
256	31598,929688	37700,765625	19,3102614463
512	21817,054688	28847,306641	32,2236527961
1024	13611,482422	19746,658203	45,0735312348
2048	7748,078125	12116,365234	56,3789760316
4096	3973,558838	6630,547852	66,8667338858
8192	2073,604736	3498,948486	68,7374852716
16384	1062,731812	1800,677002	69,4385151237
32768	539,011353	914,349915	69,6346301262
65536	271,474457	460,419739	69,5996537162
131072	136,22583	230,658081	69,3203711807
262144	67,679237	115,2174	70,2403944063
524288	33,962349	58,150139	71,219425959
1048576	16,977575	29,196684	71,9720513678

CBC 256

request size	Generic	with SS	percent gain
16	53299,761719	78896,492188	48,024099252
32	50552,882812	75414,382812	49,1791933854
64	45627,074219	69111,257812	51,4698432783
128	38222,894531	60228,265625	57,5711791689
256	29589,509766	47436,484375	60,3152088363
512	20271,425781	33738,644531	66,4344920554
1024	12366,283203	21317,179688	72,3814612529
2048	6969,46875	12329,610352	76,9088978554
4096	3510,141602	6561,364746	86,9259274971
8192	1819,765259	3425,541748	88,2408585975
16384	927,647827	1751,539307	88,8151145316
32768	468,39566	885,724548	89,0975138412
65536	235,436951	444,854584	88,9484985728
131072	118,082893	222,677353	88,5771489355
262144	59,484013	111,328018	87,1561994313
524288	29,890039	55,355247	85,1963023534
1048576	14,945913	27,657755	85,0522948983

DES

3DES

Bench tools

I use two bench tools, one for benching MD5 and SHA1 through AF_ALG, and one for benching ciphers (AES, DES, 3DES) througth cryptodev.
You can find both tools on my cryptotest github

Contacts

You could find me on Freenode, montjoie on #linux-sunxi. My email is easy to find too.

Other sunxi works

H3/A64/A83T EMAC(Ethernet) driver

I am working on the H3 EMAC driver which was accepted in mainline.

Hwmon

Apart from that I have also worked on getting temperature on A20 based boards.
Cubieboard2 has two sources of temperature, one in the TouchScreen controller embeded in the SoC and one in the AXP209 chip.

My original work for 3.4.x Allwinner based kernel can be found here for AXP209 sensor and here for A20 Embeded sensor
It is reported to still compile and work on 3.4.203
But seriously, stop using old kernel

In mainline the sun4i-ts (drivers/input/touchscreen) already gives sensors output
For getting AXP209 temperature you need the following patchs:
mfd-axp20x-Rename-ADC-register-name-IPSOUT-to-APS.patch
hwmon-AXP20x-Add-support-for-basic-voltage-current-t.patch

cubieboard # sensors
sun4i_ts-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
SoC temperature: +40.6°C

axp209-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
ACIN: +5.13 V
VBUS: +0.01 V
BATT: +0.00 V
APS: +4.97 V
CHIP: +23.5°C
BATT: 0.00 W
ACIN: +0.16 A
VBUS: +0.00 A
BATT_CHRG: +0.00 A
BATT_DISCHRG: +0.00 A