computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...

, a cryptographic accelerator is a

co-processor A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor (the CPU). Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating-point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, cryptography or ...

designed specifically to perform computationally intensive

cryptographic Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gen ...

operations, doing so far more efficiently than the general-purpose

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

. Because many

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides requested information for other programs or devices, called clients. Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending custome ...

s' system loads consist mostly of cryptographic operations, this can greatly increase performance. Intel's

AES-NI An Advanced Encryption Standard instruction set (AES instruction set) is a set of instructions that are specifically designed to perform AES encryption and decryption operations efficiently. These instructions are typically found in modern proces ...

is by far the most common cryptographic accelerator in commodity hardware.

VIA PadLock VIA PadLock is a central processing unit (CPU) instruction set extension to the x86 microprocessor instruction set architecture (ISA) found on processors produced by VIA Technologies and Zhaoxin. Introduced in 2003 with the VIA Centaur CPUs, the ad ...

is another recent example.

Operating system support

Several operating systems provide some support for cryptographic hardware. The

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...

family of systems has the OpenBSD Cryptographic Framework (OCF),

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

systems have the Crypto API,

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...

OS has the Solaris Cryptographic Framework (SCF) and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

has the

Microsoft CryptoAPI The Microsoft Windows platform specific Cryptographic Application Programming Interface (also known variously as CryptoAPI, Microsoft Cryptography API, MS-CAPI or simply CAPI) is an application programming interface included with Microsoft Windows ...

. Some cryptographic accelerators offer new machine instructions and can therefore be used directly by programs. Libraries such as

OpenSSL OpenSSL is a software library for applications that provide secure communications over computer networks against eavesdropping, and identify the party at the other end. It is widely used by Internet servers, including the majority of HTTPS web ...

and

LibreSSL LibreSSL is an open-source implementation of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. The implementation is named after Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the deprecated predecessor of TLS, for which support was removed in release 2.3.0. The OpenBSD ...

support some such cryptographic accelerators. Almost all

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

operating systems use

or the fork

as their cryptography library. These libraries use cryptographic accelerators such as

if available.

References

{{Hardware acceleration Hardware acceleration Computer optimization Coprocessors Cryptographic hardware

Operating system support

See also

References