[PATCH v6 00/28] Integrate MbedTLS v3.6 LTS with U-Boot

Peter Robinson pbrobinson at gmail.com
Wed Sep 4 14:48:43 CEST 2024


Hi Simon,

> I wonder if we could leave out the SHA stuff? The algorithms are

One of the big advantages of the mbedtls when it comes to all things
security is that it's seen a wide audit of it's code which for a lot
of usecases is very useful from a security PoV, I'm not sure the
amount of audit the U-Boot in project code has had, I'm sure there has
been but I've not seen anything published.

> stable and this would seem to avoid much of the size growth, and all
> the pain of trying to integrate another yet another hashing layer (we
> already have normal, progressive and h/w acceleration, plus

What's the difference between the first two?

> UCLASS_HASH which h/w acceleration should use but that migration never

How hard would it be for UCLASS_HASH to use the mbed hashing underneath?

> happened). I struggle to see any benefit in replacing U-Boot's very
> solid hashing infra with something else, particularly as this series

I would need to look at the HW support in both U-Boot and mbedtls but
given wider use of mbedtls I bet adding HW support there that U-Boot
could utilise may be more apertising to most HW vendors as it means
they only have to write one set of code and have it used much more
widely.

> adds yet another. Better to invest the time to refactor it. I asked
> about this before and was told that it would happen 'later'. Let's
> just not change it at all, then it is more likely someone will sort it

What, like the HW support in UCLASS_HASH? Things clearly don't work like that.

> Also, if MbedTLS is wanting to be a general library for TLS (I assume
> transport-local security, not thread-local storage) perhaps it might
> consider changing to non-Windows newlines, or perhaps even kernel code
> style?

I think the newlines might be a possible ask, they are generally
receptive to change (they relicensed it to be a dual license
compatible with U-Boot when asked), I don't think forcing a separate
to the kernel project to a kernel code style is a fair request.

Regards,
Peter


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