--- /dev/null
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: (GPL-2.0-only OR BSD-2-Clause)
+
+==================
+Kernel TLS offload
+==================
+
+Kernel TLS operation
+====================
+
+Linux kernel provides TLS connection offload infrastructure. Once a TCP
+connection is in ``ESTABLISHED`` state user space can enable the TLS Upper
+Layer Protocol (ULP) and install the cryptographic connection state.
+For details regarding the user-facing interface refer to the TLS
+documentation in :ref:`Documentation/networking/tls.rst <kernel_tls>`.
+
+``ktls`` can operate in three modes:
+
+ * Software crypto mode (``TLS_SW``) - CPU handles the cryptography.
+ In most basic cases only crypto operations synchronous with the CPU
+ can be used, but depending on calling context CPU may utilize
+ asynchronous crypto accelerators. The use of accelerators introduces extra
+ latency on socket reads (decryption only starts when a read syscall
+ is made) and additional I/O load on the system.
+ * Packet-based NIC offload mode (``TLS_HW``) - the NIC handles crypto
+ on a packet by packet basis, provided the packets arrive in order.
+ This mode integrates best with the kernel stack and is described in detail
+ in the remaining part of this document
+ (``ethtool`` flags ``tls-hw-tx-offload`` and ``tls-hw-rx-offload``).
+ * Full TCP NIC offload mode (``TLS_HW_RECORD``) - mode of operation where
+ NIC driver and firmware replace the kernel networking stack
+ with its own TCP handling, it is not usable in production environments
+ making use of the Linux networking stack for example any firewalling
+ abilities or QoS and packet scheduling (``ethtool`` flag ``tls-hw-record``).
+
+The operation mode is selected automatically based on device configuration,
+offload opt-in or opt-out on per-connection basis is not currently supported.
+
+TX
+--
+
+At a high level user write requests are turned into a scatter list, the TLS ULP
+intercepts them, inserts record framing, performs encryption (in ``TLS_SW``
+mode) and then hands the modified scatter list to the TCP layer. From this
+point on the TCP stack proceeds as normal.
+
+In ``TLS_HW`` mode the encryption is not performed in the TLS ULP.
+Instead packets reach a device driver, the driver will mark the packets
+for crypto offload based on the socket the packet is attached to,
+and send them to the device for encryption and transmission.
+
+RX
+--
+
+On the receive side if the device handled decryption and authentication
+successfully, the driver will set the decrypted bit in the associated
+:c:type:`struct sk_buff <sk_buff>`. The packets reach the TCP stack and
+are handled normally. ``ktls`` is informed when data is queued to the socket
+and the ``strparser`` mechanism is used to delineate the records. Upon read
+request, records are retrieved from the socket and passed to decryption routine.
+If device decrypted all the segments of the record the decryption is skipped,
+otherwise software path handles decryption.
+
+.. kernel-figure:: tls-offload-layers.svg
+ :alt: TLS offload layers
+ :align: center
+ :figwidth: 28em
+
+ Layers of Kernel TLS stack
+
+Device configuration
+====================
+
+During driver initialization device sets the ``NETIF_F_HW_TLS_RX`` and
+``NETIF_F_HW_TLS_TX`` features and installs its
+:c:type:`struct tlsdev_ops <tlsdev_ops>`
+pointer in the :c:member:`tlsdev_ops` member of the
+:c:type:`struct net_device <net_device>`.
+
+When TLS cryptographic connection state is installed on a ``ktls`` socket
+(note that it is done twice, once for RX and once for TX direction,
+and the two are completely independent), the kernel checks if the underlying
+network device is offload-capable and attempts the offload. In case offload
+fails the connection is handled entirely in software using the same mechanism
+as if the offload was never tried.
+
+Offload request is performed via the :c:member:`tls_dev_add` callback of
+:c:type:`struct tlsdev_ops <tlsdev_ops>`:
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+ int (*tls_dev_add)(struct net_device *netdev, struct sock *sk,
+ enum tls_offload_ctx_dir direction,
+ struct tls_crypto_info *crypto_info,
+ u32 start_offload_tcp_sn);
+
+``direction`` indicates whether the cryptographic information is for
+the received or transmitted packets. Driver uses the ``sk`` parameter
+to retrieve the connection 5-tuple and socket family (IPv4 vs IPv6).
+Cryptographic information in ``crypto_info`` includes the key, iv, salt
+as well as TLS record sequence number. ``start_offload_tcp_sn`` indicates
+which TCP sequence number corresponds to the beginning of the record with
+sequence number from ``crypto_info``. The driver can add its state
+at the end of kernel structures (see :c:member:`driver_state` members
+in ``include/net/tls.h``) to avoid additional allocations and pointer
+dereferences.
+
+TX
+--
+
+After TX state is installed, the stack guarantees that the first segment
+of the stream will start exactly at the ``start_offload_tcp_sn`` sequence
+number, simplifying TCP sequence number matching.
+
+TX offload being fully initialized does not imply that all segments passing
+through the driver and which belong to the offloaded socket will be after
+the expected sequence number and will have kernel record information.
+In particular, already encrypted data may have been queued to the socket
+before installing the connection state in the kernel.
+
+RX
+--
+
+In RX direction local networking stack has little control over the segmentation,
+so the initial records' TCP sequence number may be anywhere inside the segment.
+
+Normal operation
+================
+
+At the minimum the device maintains the following state for each connection, in
+each direction:
+
+ * crypto secrets (key, iv, salt)
+ * crypto processing state (partial blocks, partial authentication tag, etc.)
+ * record metadata (sequence number, processing offset and length)
+ * expected TCP sequence number
+
+There are no guarantees on record length or record segmentation. In particular
+segments may start at any point of a record and contain any number of records.
+Assuming segments are received in order, the device should be able to perform
+crypto operations and authentication regardless of segmentation. For this
+to be possible device has to keep small amount of segment-to-segment state.
+This includes at least:
+
+ * partial headers (if a segment carried only a part of the TLS header)
+ * partial data block
+ * partial authentication tag (all data had been seen but part of the
+ authentication tag has to be written or read from the subsequent segment)
+
+Record reassembly is not necessary for TLS offload. If the packets arrive
+in order the device should be able to handle them separately and make
+forward progress.
+
+TX
+--
+
+The kernel stack performs record framing reserving space for the authentication
+tag and populating all other TLS header and tailer fields.
+
+Both the device and the driver maintain expected TCP sequence numbers
+due to the possibility of retransmissions and the lack of software fallback
+once the packet reaches the device.
+For segments passed in order, the driver marks the packets with
+a connection identifier (note that a 5-tuple lookup is insufficient to identify
+packets requiring HW offload, see the :ref:`5tuple_problems` section)
+and hands them to the device. The device identifies the packet as requiring
+TLS handling and confirms the sequence number matches its expectation.
+The device performs encryption and authentication of the record data.
+It replaces the authentication tag and TCP checksum with correct values.
+
+RX
+--
+
+Before a packet is DMAed to the host (but after NIC's embedded switching
+and packet transformation functions) the device validates the Layer 4
+checksum and performs a 5-tuple lookup to find any TLS connection the packet
+may belong to (technically a 4-tuple
+lookup is sufficient - IP addresses and TCP port numbers, as the protocol
+is always TCP). If connection is matched device confirms if the TCP sequence
+number is the expected one and proceeds to TLS handling (record delineation,
+decryption, authentication for each record in the packet). The device leaves
+the record framing unmodified, the stack takes care of record decapsulation.
+Device indicates successful handling of TLS offload in the per-packet context
+(descriptor) passed to the host.
+
+Upon reception of a TLS offloaded packet, the driver sets
+the :c:member:`decrypted` mark in :c:type:`struct sk_buff <sk_buff>`
+corresponding to the segment. Networking stack makes sure decrypted
+and non-decrypted segments do not get coalesced (e.g. by GRO or socket layer)
+and takes care of partial decryption.
+
+Resync handling
+===============
+
+In presence of packet drops or network packet reordering, the device may lose
+synchronization with the TLS stream, and require a resync with the kernel's
+TCP stack.
+
+Note that resync is only attempted for connections which were successfully
+added to the device table and are in TLS_HW mode. For example,
+if the table was full when cryptographic state was installed in the kernel,
+such connection will never get offloaded. Therefore the resync request
+does not carry any cryptographic connection state.
+
+TX
+--
+
+Segments transmitted from an offloaded socket can get out of sync
+in similar ways to the receive side-retransmissions - local drops
+are possible, though network reorders are not.
+
+Whenever an out of order segment is transmitted the driver provides
+the device with enough information to perform cryptographic operations.
+This means most likely that the part of the record preceding the current
+segment has to be passed to the device as part of the packet context,
+together with its TCP sequence number and TLS record number. The device
+can then initialize its crypto state, process and discard the preceding
+data (to be able to insert the authentication tag) and move onto handling
+the actual packet.
+
+In this mode depending on the implementation the driver can either ask
+for a continuation with the crypto state and the new sequence number
+(next expected segment is the one after the out of order one), or continue
+with the previous stream state - assuming that the out of order segment
+was just a retransmission. The former is simpler, and does not require
+retransmission detection therefore it is the recommended method until
+such time it is proven inefficient.
+
+RX
+--
+
+A small amount of RX reorder events may not require a full resynchronization.
+In particular the device should not lose synchronization
+when record boundary can be recovered:
+
+.. kernel-figure:: tls-offload-reorder-good.svg
+ :alt: reorder of non-header segment
+ :align: center
+
+ Reorder of non-header segment
+
+Green segments are successfully decrypted, blue ones are passed
+as received on wire, red stripes mark start of new records.
+
+In above case segment 1 is received and decrypted successfully.
+Segment 2 was dropped so 3 arrives out of order. The device knows
+the next record starts inside 3, based on record length in segment 1.
+Segment 3 is passed untouched, because due to lack of data from segment 2
+the remainder of the previous record inside segment 3 cannot be handled.
+The device can, however, collect the authentication algorithm's state
+and partial block from the new record in segment 3 and when 4 and 5
+arrive continue decryption. Finally when 2 arrives it's completely outside
+of expected window of the device so it's passed as is without special
+handling. ``ktls`` software fallback handles the decryption of record
+spanning segments 1, 2 and 3. The device did not get out of sync,
+even though two segments did not get decrypted.
+
+Kernel synchronization may be necessary if the lost segment contained
+a record header and arrived after the next record header has already passed:
+
+.. kernel-figure:: tls-offload-reorder-bad.svg
+ :alt: reorder of header segment
+ :align: center
+
+ Reorder of segment with a TLS header
+
+In this example segment 2 gets dropped, and it contains a record header.
+Device can only detect that segment 4 also contains a TLS header
+if it knows the length of the previous record from segment 2. In this case
+the device will lose synchronization with the stream.
+
+When the device gets out of sync and the stream reaches TCP sequence
+numbers more than a max size record past the expected TCP sequence number,
+the device starts scanning for a known header pattern. For example
+for TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 subsequent bytes of value ``0x03 0x03`` occur
+in the SSL/TLS version field of the header. Once pattern is matched
+the device continues attempting parsing headers at expected locations
+(based on the length fields at guessed locations).
+Whenever the expected location does not contain a valid header the scan
+is restarted.
+
+When the header is matched the device sends a confirmation request
+to the kernel, asking if the guessed location is correct (if a TLS record
+really starts there), and which record sequence number the given header had.
+The kernel confirms the guessed location was correct and tells the device
+the record sequence number. Meanwhile, the device had been parsing
+and counting all records since the just-confirmed one, it adds the number
+of records it had seen to the record number provided by the kernel.
+At this point the device is in sync and can resume decryption at next
+segment boundary.
+
+In a pathological case the device may latch onto a sequence of matching
+headers and never hear back from the kernel (there is no negative
+confirmation from the kernel). The implementation may choose to periodically
+restart scan. Given how unlikely falsely-matching stream is, however,
+periodic restart is not deemed necessary.
+
+Special care has to be taken if the confirmation request is passed
+asynchronously to the packet stream and record may get processed
+by the kernel before the confirmation request.
+
+Error handling
+==============
+
+TX
+--
+
+Packets may be redirected or rerouted by the stack to a different
+device than the selected TLS offload device. The stack will handle
+such condition using the :c:func:`sk_validate_xmit_skb` helper
+(TLS offload code installs :c:func:`tls_validate_xmit_skb` at this hook).
+Offload maintains information about all records until the data is
+fully acknowledged, so if skbs reach the wrong device they can be handled
+by software fallback.
+
+Any device TLS offload handling error on the transmission side must result
+in the packet being dropped. For example if a packet got out of order
+due to a bug in the stack or the device, reached the device and can't
+be encrypted such packet must be dropped.
+
+RX
+--
+
+If the device encounters any problems with TLS offload on the receive
+side it should pass the packet to the host's networking stack as it was
+received on the wire.
+
+For example authentication failure for any record in the segment should
+result in passing the unmodified packet to the software fallback. This means
+packets should not be modified "in place". Splitting segments to handle partial
+decryption is not advised. In other words either all records in the packet
+had been handled successfully and authenticated or the packet has to be passed
+to the host's stack as it was on the wire (recovering original packet in the
+driver if device provides precise error is sufficient).
+
+The Linux networking stack does not provide a way of reporting per-packet
+decryption and authentication errors, packets with errors must simply not
+have the :c:member:`decrypted` mark set.
+
+A packet should also not be handled by the TLS offload if it contains
+incorrect checksums.
+
+Performance metrics
+===================
+
+TLS offload can be characterized by the following basic metrics:
+
+ * max connection count
+ * connection installation rate
+ * connection installation latency
+ * total cryptographic performance
+
+Note that each TCP connection requires a TLS session in both directions,
+the performance may be reported treating each direction separately.
+
+Max connection count
+--------------------
+
+The number of connections device can support can be exposed via
+``devlink resource`` API.
+
+Total cryptographic performance
+-------------------------------
+
+Offload performance may depend on segment and record size.
+
+Overload of the cryptographic subsystem of the device should not have
+significant performance impact on non-offloaded streams.
+
+Statistics
+==========
+
+Following minimum set of TLS-related statistics should be reported
+by the driver:
+
+ * ``rx_tls_decrypted`` - number of successfully decrypted TLS segments
+ * ``tx_tls_encrypted`` - number of in-order TLS segments passed to device
+ for encryption
+ * ``tx_tls_ooo`` - number of TX packets which were part of a TLS stream
+ but did not arrive in the expected order
+ * ``tx_tls_drop_no_sync_data`` - number of TX packets dropped because
+ they arrived out of order and associated record could not be found
+ (see also :ref:`pre_tls_data`)
+
+Notable corner cases, exceptions and additional requirements
+============================================================
+
+.. _5tuple_problems:
+
+5-tuple matching limitations
+----------------------------
+
+The device can only recognize received packets based on the 5-tuple
+of the socket. Current ``ktls`` implementation will not offload sockets
+routed through software interfaces such as those used for tunneling
+or virtual networking. However, many packet transformations performed
+by the networking stack (most notably any BPF logic) do not require
+any intermediate software device, therefore a 5-tuple match may
+consistently miss at the device level. In such cases the device
+should still be able to perform TX offload (encryption) and should
+fallback cleanly to software decryption (RX).
+
+Out of order
+------------
+
+Introducing extra processing in NICs should not cause packets to be
+transmitted or received out of order, for example pure ACK packets
+should not be reordered with respect to data segments.
+
+Ingress reorder
+---------------
+
+A device is permitted to perform packet reordering for consecutive
+TCP segments (i.e. placing packets in the correct order) but any form
+of additional buffering is disallowed.
+
+Coexistence with standard networking offload features
+-----------------------------------------------------
+
+Offloaded ``ktls`` sockets should support standard TCP stack features
+transparently. Enabling device TLS offload should not cause any difference
+in packets as seen on the wire.
+
+Transport layer transparency
+----------------------------
+
+The device should not modify any packet headers for the purpose
+of the simplifying TLS offload.
+
+The device should not depend on any packet headers beyond what is strictly
+necessary for TLS offload.
+
+Segment drops
+-------------
+
+Dropping packets is acceptable only in the event of catastrophic
+system errors and should never be used as an error handling mechanism
+in cases arising from normal operation. In other words, reliance
+on TCP retransmissions to handle corner cases is not acceptable.
+
+TLS device features
+-------------------
+
+Drivers should ignore the changes to TLS the device feature flags.
+These flags will be acted upon accordingly by the core ``ktls`` code.
+TLS device feature flags only control adding of new TLS connection
+offloads, old connections will remain active after flags are cleared.
+
+Known bugs
+==========
+
+skb_orphan() leaks clear text
+-----------------------------
+
+Currently drivers depend on the :c:member:`sk` member of
+:c:type:`struct sk_buff <sk_buff>` to identify segments requiring
+encryption. Any operation which removes or does not preserve the socket
+association such as :c:func:`skb_orphan` or :c:func:`skb_clone`
+will cause the driver to miss the packets and lead to clear text leaks.
+
+Redirects leak clear text
+-------------------------
+
+In the RX direction, if segment has already been decrypted by the device
+and it gets redirected or mirrored - clear text will be transmitted out.
+
+.. _pre_tls_data:
+
+Transmission of pre-TLS data
+----------------------------
+
+User can enqueue some already encrypted and framed records before enabling
+``ktls`` on the socket. Those records have to get sent as they are. This is
+perfectly easy to handle in the software case - such data will be waiting
+in the TCP layer, TLS ULP won't see it. In the offloaded case when pre-queued
+segment reaches transmission point it appears to be out of order (before the
+expected TCP sequence number) and the stack does not have a record information
+associated.
+
+All segments without record information cannot, however, be assumed to be
+pre-queued data, because a race condition exists between TCP stack queuing
+a retransmission, the driver seeing the retransmission and TCP ACK arriving
+for the retransmitted data.
projects / openwrt / staging / blogic.git / commitdiff
