The SSL module accesses ECDH context members directly to print debug
information. This can't work with the new context, where we can't make
assumptions about the implementation of the context. This commit adds
new debug functions to complete the encapsulation of the ECDH context
and work around the problem.
We want to support alternative software implementations and we extend
the ECDH context to enable this. The actual functional change that makes
use of the new context is out of scope for this commit.
Changing the context breaks the API and therefore it has to be
excluded from the default configuration by a compile time flag.
We add the compile time flag to the module header instead of
`config.h`, because this is not a standalone feature, it only
enables adding new implementations in the future.
The new context features a union of the individual implementations
and a selector that chooses the implementation in use. An alternative
is to use an opaque context and function pointers, like for example the
PK module does it, but it is more dangerous, error prone and tedious to
implement.
We leave the group ID and the point format at the top level of the
structure, because they are very simple and adding an abstraction
layer around them away does not come with any obvious benefit.
Other alternatives considered:
- Using the module level replacement mechanism in the ECP module. This
would have made the use of the replacement feature more difficult and
the benefit limited.
- Replacing our Montgomery implementations with a new one directly. This
would have prevented using Montgomery curves across implementations.
(For example use implementation A for Curve448 and implementation B for
Curve22519.) Also it would have been inflexible and limited to
Montgomery curves.
- Encoding the implementation selector and the alternative context in
`mbedtls_ecp_point` somehow and rewriting `mbedtls_ecp_mul()` to
dispatch between implementations. This would have been a dangerous and
ugly hack, and very likely to break legacy applications.
- Same as above just with hardcoding the selector and using a compile
time option to make the selection. Rejected for the same reasons as
above.
- Using the PK module to provide to provide an entry point for
alternative implementations. Like most of the above options this
wouldn't have come with a new compile time option, but conceptually
would have been very out of place and would have meant much more work to
complete the abstraction around the context.
In retrospect:
- We could have used the group ID as the selector, but this would have
made the code less flexible and only marginally simpler. On the other
hand it would have allowed to get rid of the compile time option if a
tight integration of the alternative is possible. (It does not seem
possible at this point.)
- We could have used the same approach we do in this commit to the
`mbedtls_ecp_point` structure. Completing the abstraction around this
structure would have been a much bigger and much riskier code change
with increase in memory footprint, potential decrease in performance
and no immediate benefit.
In the future we want to support alternative ECDH implementations. We
can't make assumptions about the structure of the context they might
use, and therefore shouldn't access the members of
`mbedtls_ecdh_context`.
Currently the lifecycle of the context can't be done without direct
manipulation. This commit adds `mbedtls_ecdh_setup()` to complete
covering the context lifecycle with functions.
`mbedtls_ecp_tls_read_group()` both parses the group ID and loads the
group into the structure provided. We want to support alternative
implementations of ECDH in the future and for that we need to parse the
group ID without populating an `mbedtls_ecp_group` structure (because
alternative implementations might not use that).
This commit moves the part that parses the group ID to a new function.
There is no need to test the new function directly, because the tests
for `mbedtls_ecp_tls_read_group()` are already implicitly testing it.
There is no intended change in behaviour in this commit.
Deprecate the module-specific XXX_HW_ACCEL_FAILED and
XXX_FEATURE_UNAVAILABLE errors, as alternative implementations should now
return `MBEDTLS_ERR_PLATFORM_HW_FAILED` and
`MBEDTLS_ERR_PLATFORM_FEATURE_UNSUPPORTED`.
Context:
The macro `MBEDTLS_ECP_BUDGET()` is called before performing a
number of potentially time-consuming ECC operations. If restartable
ECC is enabled, it wraps a call to `mbedtls_ecp_check_budget()`
which in turn checks if the requested number of operations can be
performed without exceeding the maximum number of consecutive ECC
operations.
Issue:
The function `mbedtls_ecp_check_budget()` expects a the number
of requested operations to be given as a value of type `unsigned`,
while some calls of the wrapper macro `MBEDTLS_ECP_BUDGET()` use
expressions of type `size_t`.
This rightfully leads to warnings about implicit truncation
from `size_t` to `unsigned` on some compilers.
Fix:
This commit makes the truncation explicit by adding an explicit cast
to `unsigned` in the expansion of the `MBEDTLS_ECP_BUDGET()` macro.
Justification:
Functionally, the new version is equivalent to the previous code.
The warning about truncation can be discarded because, as can be
inferred from `ecp.h`, the number of requested operations is never
larger than 1000.
Previously, mbedtls_pkcs5_pbes2() was unconditionally declared
in `pkcs5.h` but defined as a stub returning
`MBEDTLS_ERR_PKCS5_FEATURE_UNAVAILABLE` in case
MBEDTLS_ASN1_PARSE_C was not defined.
In line with the previous commits, this commit removes declaration
and definition from both `pkcs5.h` and `pkcs5.c` in case
MBEDTLS_ASN1_PARSE_C is not defined.
Rename the PLATFORM HW error, to avoid ABI breakage with Mbed OS.
The value changed as well, as previous value was not in the range of
Mbed TLS low level error codes.
The previous comment in ecp.h that only functions that take a "restart
context" argument can restart was wrong due to ECDH and SSL functions.
Changing that criterion to "document says if can return IN PROGRESS".
This requires updating the documentation of the SSL functions to mention this
explicitly, but it's something we really ought to do anyway, a bit
embarrassing that this wasn't done already - callers need to know what
`MBEDTLS_ERR_SSL_xxx` error codes to special-case. Note that the documentation
of the relevant functions was in a suboptimal state, so it was improved in the
process - it could use some more improvement, but only the changes that helped
cleanly insert the info about the IN_PROGRESS part were done here.
Also, while updating the ecp.h comment, I noticed several functions in the
ECDH module were wrongfully documented as restartable, which is probably a
left-over from the days before `mbedtls_ecdh_enable_restart()` was introduced.
Fixing that as well, to make the criterion used in ecp.h correct.
When using a primality testing function the tolerable error rate depends
on the scheme in question, the required security strength and wether it
is used for key generation or parameter validation. To support all use
cases we need more flexibility than what the old API provides.
The FIPS 186-4 RSA key generation prescribes lower failure probability
in primality testing and this makes key generation slower. We enable the
caller to decide between compliance/security and performance.
This python script calculates the base two logarithm of the formulas in
HAC Fact 4.48 and was used to determine the breakpoints and number of
rounds:
def mrpkt_log_2(k, t):
if t <= k/9.0:
return 3*math.log(k,2)/2+t-math.log(t,2)/2+4-2*math.sqrt(t*k)
elif t <= k/4.0:
c1 = math.log(7.0*k/20,2)-5*t
c2 = math.log(1/7.0,2)+15*math.log(k,2)/4.0-k/2.0-2*t
c3 = math.log(12*k,2)-k/4.0-3*t
return max(c1, c2, c3)
else:
return math.log(1/7.0)+15*math.log(k,2)/4.0-k/2.0-2*t
The Cortex M4, M7 MCUs and the Cortex A CPUs support the ARM DSP
instructions, and especially the umaal instruction which greatly
speed up MULADDC code. In addition the patch switched the ASM
constraints to registers instead of memory, giving the opportunity
for the compiler to load them the best way.
The speed improvement is variable depending on the crypto operation
and the CPU. Here are the results on a Cortex M4, a Cortex M7 and a
Cortex A8. All tests have been done with GCC 6.3 using -O2. RSA uses a
RSA-4096 key. ECDSA uses a secp256r1 curve EC key pair.
+--------+--------+--------+
| M4 | M7 | A8 |
+----------------+--------+--------+--------+
| ECDSA signing | +6.3% | +7.9% | +4.1% |
+----------------+--------+--------+--------+
| RSA signing | +43.7% | +68.3% | +26.3% |
+----------------+--------+--------+--------+
| RSA encryption | +3.4% | +9.7% | +3.6% |
+----------------+--------+--------+--------+
| RSA decryption | +43.0% | +67.8% | +22.8% |
+----------------+--------+--------+--------+
I ran the whole testsuite on the Cortex A8 Linux environment, and it
all passes.
