| lh | 9ed821d | 2023-04-07 01:36:19 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | ENGINE | 
|  | 2 | ====== | 
|  | 3 |  | 
|  | 4 | With OpenSSL 0.9.6, a new component was added to support alternative | 
|  | 5 | cryptography implementations, most commonly for interfacing with external | 
|  | 6 | crypto devices (eg. accelerator cards). This component is called ENGINE, | 
|  | 7 | and its presence in OpenSSL 0.9.6 (and subsequent bug-fix releases) | 
|  | 8 | caused a little confusion as 0.9.6** releases were rolled in two | 
|  | 9 | versions, a "standard" and an "engine" version. In development for 0.9.7, | 
|  | 10 | the ENGINE code has been merged into the main branch and will be present | 
|  | 11 | in the standard releases from 0.9.7 forwards. | 
|  | 12 |  | 
|  | 13 | There are currently built-in ENGINE implementations for the following | 
|  | 14 | crypto devices: | 
|  | 15 |  | 
|  | 16 | o Microsoft CryptoAPI | 
|  | 17 | o VIA Padlock | 
|  | 18 | o nCipher CHIL | 
|  | 19 |  | 
|  | 20 | In addition, dynamic binding to external ENGINE implementations is now | 
|  | 21 | provided by a special ENGINE called "dynamic". See the "DYNAMIC ENGINE" | 
|  | 22 | section below for details. | 
|  | 23 |  | 
|  | 24 | At this stage, a number of things are still needed and are being worked on: | 
|  | 25 |  | 
|  | 26 | 1 Integration of EVP support. | 
|  | 27 | 2 Configuration support. | 
|  | 28 | 3 Documentation! | 
|  | 29 |  | 
|  | 30 | 1 With respect to EVP, this relates to support for ciphers and digests in | 
|  | 31 | the ENGINE model so that alternative implementations of existing | 
|  | 32 | algorithms/modes (or previously unimplemented ones) can be provided by | 
|  | 33 | ENGINE implementations. | 
|  | 34 |  | 
|  | 35 | 2 Configuration support currently exists in the ENGINE API itself, in the | 
|  | 36 | form of "control commands". These allow an application to expose to the | 
|  | 37 | user/admin the set of commands and parameter types a given ENGINE | 
|  | 38 | implementation supports, and for an application to directly feed string | 
|  | 39 | based input to those ENGINEs, in the form of name-value pairs. This is an | 
|  | 40 | extensible way for ENGINEs to define their own "configuration" mechanisms | 
|  | 41 | that are specific to a given ENGINE (eg. for a particular hardware | 
|  | 42 | device) but that should be consistent across *all* OpenSSL-based | 
|  | 43 | applications when they use that ENGINE. Work is in progress (or at least | 
|  | 44 | in planning) for supporting these control commands from the CONF (or | 
|  | 45 | NCONF) code so that applications using OpenSSL's existing configuration | 
|  | 46 | file format can have ENGINE settings specified in much the same way. | 
|  | 47 | Presently however, applications must use the ENGINE API itself to provide | 
|  | 48 | such functionality. To see first hand the types of commands available | 
|  | 49 | with the various compiled-in ENGINEs (see further down for dynamic | 
|  | 50 | ENGINEs), use the "engine" openssl utility with full verbosity, ie; | 
|  | 51 | openssl engine -vvvv | 
|  | 52 |  | 
|  | 53 | 3 Documentation? Volunteers welcome! The source code is reasonably well | 
|  | 54 | self-documenting, but some summaries and usage instructions are needed - | 
|  | 55 | moreover, they are needed in the same POD format the existing OpenSSL | 
|  | 56 | documentation is provided in. Any complete or incomplete contributions | 
|  | 57 | would help make this happen. | 
|  | 58 |  | 
|  | 59 | STABILITY & BUG-REPORTS | 
|  | 60 | ======================= | 
|  | 61 |  | 
|  | 62 | What already exists is fairly stable as far as it has been tested, but | 
|  | 63 | the test base has been a bit small most of the time. For the most part, | 
|  | 64 | the vendors of the devices these ENGINEs support have contributed to the | 
|  | 65 | development and/or testing of the implementations, and *usually* (with no | 
|  | 66 | guarantees) have experience in using the ENGINE support to drive their | 
|  | 67 | devices from common OpenSSL-based applications. Bugs and/or inexplicable | 
|  | 68 | behaviour in using a specific ENGINE implementation should be sent to the | 
|  | 69 | author of that implementation (if it is mentioned in the corresponding C | 
|  | 70 | file), and in the case of implementations for commercial hardware | 
|  | 71 | devices, also through whatever vendor support channels are available.  If | 
|  | 72 | none of this is possible, or the problem seems to be something about the | 
|  | 73 | ENGINE API itself (ie. not necessarily specific to a particular ENGINE | 
|  | 74 | implementation) then you should mail complete details to the relevant | 
|  | 75 | OpenSSL mailing list. For a definition of "complete details", refer to | 
|  | 76 | the OpenSSL "README" file. As for which list to send it to; | 
|  | 77 |  | 
|  | 78 | openssl-users: if you are *using* the ENGINE abstraction, either in an | 
|  | 79 | pre-compiled application or in your own application code. | 
|  | 80 |  | 
|  | 81 | openssl-dev: if you are discussing problems with OpenSSL source code. | 
|  | 82 |  | 
|  | 83 | USAGE | 
|  | 84 | ===== | 
|  | 85 |  | 
|  | 86 | The default "openssl" ENGINE is always chosen when performing crypto | 
|  | 87 | operations unless you specify otherwise. You must actively tell the | 
|  | 88 | openssl utility commands to use anything else through a new command line | 
|  | 89 | switch called "-engine". Also, if you want to use the ENGINE support in | 
|  | 90 | your own code to do something similar, you must likewise explicitly | 
|  | 91 | select the ENGINE implementation you want. | 
|  | 92 |  | 
|  | 93 | Depending on the type of hardware, system, and configuration, "settings" | 
|  | 94 | may need to be applied to an ENGINE for it to function as expected/hoped. | 
|  | 95 | The recommended way of doing this is for the application to support | 
|  | 96 | ENGINE "control commands" so that each ENGINE implementation can provide | 
|  | 97 | whatever configuration primitives it might require and the application | 
|  | 98 | can allow the user/admin (and thus the hardware vendor's support desk | 
|  | 99 | also) to provide any such input directly to the ENGINE implementation. | 
|  | 100 | This way, applications do not need to know anything specific to any | 
|  | 101 | device, they only need to provide the means to carry such user/admin | 
|  | 102 | input through to the ENGINE in question. Ie. this connects *you* (and | 
|  | 103 | your helpdesk) to the specific ENGINE implementation (and device), and | 
|  | 104 | allows application authors to not get buried in hassle supporting | 
|  | 105 | arbitrary devices they know (and care) nothing about. | 
|  | 106 |  | 
|  | 107 | A new "openssl" utility, "openssl engine", has been added in that allows | 
|  | 108 | for testing and examination of ENGINE implementations. Basic usage | 
|  | 109 | instructions are available by specifying the "-?" command line switch. | 
|  | 110 |  | 
|  | 111 | DYNAMIC ENGINES | 
|  | 112 | =============== | 
|  | 113 |  | 
|  | 114 | The new "dynamic" ENGINE provides a low-overhead way to support ENGINE | 
|  | 115 | implementations that aren't pre-compiled and linked into OpenSSL-based | 
|  | 116 | applications. This could be because existing compiled-in implementations | 
|  | 117 | have known problems and you wish to use a newer version with an existing | 
|  | 118 | application. It could equally be because the application (or OpenSSL | 
|  | 119 | library) you are using simply doesn't have support for the ENGINE you | 
|  | 120 | wish to use, and the ENGINE provider (eg. hardware vendor) is providing | 
|  | 121 | you with a self-contained implementation in the form of a shared-library. | 
|  | 122 | The other use-case for "dynamic" is with applications that wish to | 
|  | 123 | maintain the smallest foot-print possible and so do not link in various | 
|  | 124 | ENGINE implementations from OpenSSL, but instead leaves you to provide | 
|  | 125 | them, if you want them, in the form of "dynamic"-loadable | 
|  | 126 | shared-libraries. It should be possible for hardware vendors to provide | 
|  | 127 | their own shared-libraries to support arbitrary hardware to work with | 
|  | 128 | applications based on OpenSSL 0.9.7 or later. If you're using an | 
|  | 129 | application based on 0.9.7 (or later) and the support you desire is only | 
|  | 130 | announced for versions later than the one you need, ask the vendor to | 
|  | 131 | backport their ENGINE to the version you need. | 
|  | 132 |  | 
|  | 133 | How does "dynamic" work? | 
|  | 134 | ------------------------ | 
|  | 135 | The dynamic ENGINE has a special flag in its implementation such that | 
|  | 136 | every time application code asks for the 'dynamic' ENGINE, it in fact | 
|  | 137 | gets its own copy of it. As such, multi-threaded code (or code that | 
|  | 138 | multiplexes multiple uses of 'dynamic' in a single application in any | 
|  | 139 | way at all) does not get confused by 'dynamic' being used to do many | 
|  | 140 | independent things. Other ENGINEs typically don't do this so there is | 
|  | 141 | only ever 1 ENGINE structure of its type (and reference counts are used | 
|  | 142 | to keep order). The dynamic ENGINE itself provides absolutely no | 
|  | 143 | cryptographic functionality, and any attempt to "initialise" the ENGINE | 
|  | 144 | automatically fails. All it does provide are a few "control commands" | 
|  | 145 | that can be used to control how it will load an external ENGINE | 
|  | 146 | implementation from a shared-library. To see these control commands, | 
|  | 147 | use the command-line; | 
|  | 148 |  | 
|  | 149 | openssl engine -vvvv dynamic | 
|  | 150 |  | 
|  | 151 | The "SO_PATH" control command should be used to identify the | 
|  | 152 | shared-library that contains the ENGINE implementation, and "NO_VCHECK" | 
|  | 153 | might possibly be useful if there is a minor version conflict and you | 
|  | 154 | (or a vendor helpdesk) is convinced you can safely ignore it. | 
|  | 155 | "ID" is probably only needed if a shared-library implements | 
|  | 156 | multiple ENGINEs, but if you know the engine id you expect to be using, | 
|  | 157 | it doesn't hurt to specify it (and this provides a sanity check if | 
|  | 158 | nothing else). "LIST_ADD" is only required if you actually wish the | 
|  | 159 | loaded ENGINE to be discoverable by application code later on using the | 
|  | 160 | ENGINE's "id". For most applications, this isn't necessary - but some | 
|  | 161 | application authors may have nifty reasons for using it. The "LOAD" | 
|  | 162 | command is the only one that takes no parameters and is the command | 
|  | 163 | that uses the settings from any previous commands to actually *load* | 
|  | 164 | the shared-library ENGINE implementation. If this command succeeds, the | 
|  | 165 | (copy of the) 'dynamic' ENGINE will magically morph into the ENGINE | 
|  | 166 | that has been loaded from the shared-library. As such, any control | 
|  | 167 | commands supported by the loaded ENGINE could then be executed as per | 
|  | 168 | normal. Eg. if ENGINE "foo" is implemented in the shared-library | 
|  | 169 | "libfoo.so" and it supports some special control command "CMD_FOO", the | 
|  | 170 | following code would load and use it (NB: obviously this code has no | 
|  | 171 | error checking); | 
|  | 172 |  | 
|  | 173 | ENGINE *e = ENGINE_by_id("dynamic"); | 
|  | 174 | ENGINE_ctrl_cmd_string(e, "SO_PATH", "/lib/libfoo.so", 0); | 
|  | 175 | ENGINE_ctrl_cmd_string(e, "ID", "foo", 0); | 
|  | 176 | ENGINE_ctrl_cmd_string(e, "LOAD", NULL, 0); | 
|  | 177 | ENGINE_ctrl_cmd_string(e, "CMD_FOO", "some input data", 0); | 
|  | 178 |  | 
|  | 179 | For testing, the "openssl engine" utility can be useful for this sort | 
|  | 180 | of thing. For example the above code excerpt would achieve much the | 
|  | 181 | same result as; | 
|  | 182 |  | 
|  | 183 | openssl engine dynamic \ | 
|  | 184 | -pre SO_PATH:/lib/libfoo.so \ | 
|  | 185 | -pre ID:foo \ | 
|  | 186 | -pre LOAD \ | 
|  | 187 | -pre "CMD_FOO:some input data" | 
|  | 188 |  | 
|  | 189 | Or to simply see the list of commands supported by the "foo" ENGINE; | 
|  | 190 |  | 
|  | 191 | openssl engine -vvvv dynamic \ | 
|  | 192 | -pre SO_PATH:/lib/libfoo.so \ | 
|  | 193 | -pre ID:foo \ | 
|  | 194 | -pre LOAD | 
|  | 195 |  | 
|  | 196 | Applications that support the ENGINE API and more specifically, the | 
|  | 197 | "control commands" mechanism, will provide some way for you to pass | 
|  | 198 | such commands through to ENGINEs. As such, you would select "dynamic" | 
|  | 199 | as the ENGINE to use, and the parameters/commands you pass would | 
|  | 200 | control the *actual* ENGINE used. Each command is actually a name-value | 
|  | 201 | pair and the value can sometimes be omitted (eg. the "LOAD" command). | 
|  | 202 | Whilst the syntax demonstrated in "openssl engine" uses a colon to | 
|  | 203 | separate the command name from the value, applications may provide | 
|  | 204 | their own syntax for making that separation (eg. a win32 registry | 
|  | 205 | key-value pair may be used by some applications). The reason for the | 
|  | 206 | "-pre" syntax in the "openssl engine" utility is that some commands | 
|  | 207 | might be issued to an ENGINE *after* it has been initialised for use. | 
|  | 208 | Eg. if an ENGINE implementation requires a smart-card to be inserted | 
|  | 209 | during initialisation (or a PIN to be typed, or whatever), there may be | 
|  | 210 | a control command you can issue afterwards to "forget" the smart-card | 
|  | 211 | so that additional initialisation is no longer possible. In | 
|  | 212 | applications such as web-servers, where potentially volatile code may | 
|  | 213 | run on the same host system, this may provide some arguable security | 
|  | 214 | value. In such a case, the command would be passed to the ENGINE after | 
|  | 215 | it has been initialised for use, and so the "-post" switch would be | 
|  | 216 | used instead. Applications may provide a different syntax for | 
|  | 217 | supporting this distinction, and some may simply not provide it at all | 
|  | 218 | ("-pre" is almost always what you're after, in reality). | 
|  | 219 |  | 
|  | 220 | How do I build a "dynamic" ENGINE? | 
|  | 221 | ---------------------------------- | 
|  | 222 | This question is trickier - currently OpenSSL bundles various ENGINE | 
|  | 223 | implementations that are statically built in, and any application that | 
|  | 224 | calls the "ENGINE_load_builtin_engines()" function will automatically | 
|  | 225 | have all such ENGINEs available (and occupying memory). Applications | 
|  | 226 | that don't call that function have no ENGINEs available like that and | 
|  | 227 | would have to use "dynamic" to load any such ENGINE - but on the other | 
|  | 228 | hand such applications would only have the memory footprint of any | 
|  | 229 | ENGINEs explicitly loaded using user/admin provided control commands. | 
|  | 230 | The main advantage of not statically linking ENGINEs and only using | 
|  | 231 | "dynamic" for hardware support is that any installation using no | 
|  | 232 | "external" ENGINE suffers no unnecessary memory footprint from unused | 
|  | 233 | ENGINEs. Likewise, installations that do require an ENGINE incur the | 
|  | 234 | overheads from only *that* ENGINE once it has been loaded. | 
|  | 235 |  | 
|  | 236 | Sounds good? Maybe, but currently building an ENGINE implementation as | 
|  | 237 | a shared-library that can be loaded by "dynamic" isn't automated in | 
|  | 238 | OpenSSL's build process. It can be done manually quite easily however. | 
|  | 239 | Such a shared-library can either be built with any OpenSSL code it | 
|  | 240 | needs statically linked in, or it can link dynamically against OpenSSL | 
|  | 241 | if OpenSSL itself is built as a shared library. The instructions are | 
|  | 242 | the same in each case, but in the former (statically linked any | 
|  | 243 | dependencies on OpenSSL) you must ensure OpenSSL is built with | 
|  | 244 | position-independent code ("PIC"). The default OpenSSL compilation may | 
|  | 245 | already specify the relevant flags to do this, but you should consult | 
|  | 246 | with your compiler documentation if you are in any doubt. | 
|  | 247 |  | 
|  | 248 | This example will show building the "atalla" ENGINE in the | 
|  | 249 | crypto/engine/ directory as a shared-library for use via the "dynamic" | 
|  | 250 | ENGINE. | 
|  | 251 | 1) "cd" to the crypto/engine/ directory of a pre-compiled OpenSSL | 
|  | 252 | source tree. | 
|  | 253 | 2) Recompile at least one source file so you can see all the compiler | 
|  | 254 | flags (and syntax) being used to build normally. Eg; | 
|  | 255 | touch hw_atalla.c ; make | 
|  | 256 | will rebuild "hw_atalla.o" using all such flags. | 
|  | 257 | 3) Manually enter the same compilation line to compile the | 
|  | 258 | "hw_atalla.c" file but with the following two changes; | 
|  | 259 | (a) add "-DENGINE_DYNAMIC_SUPPORT" to the command line switches, | 
|  | 260 | (b) change the output file from "hw_atalla.o" to something new, | 
|  | 261 | eg. "tmp_atalla.o" | 
|  | 262 | 4) Link "tmp_atalla.o" into a shared-library using the top-level | 
|  | 263 | OpenSSL libraries to resolve any dependencies. The syntax for doing | 
|  | 264 | this depends heavily on your system/compiler and is a nightmare | 
|  | 265 | known well to anyone who has worked with shared-library portability | 
|  | 266 | before. 'gcc' on Linux, for example, would use the following syntax; | 
|  | 267 | gcc -shared -o dyn_atalla.so tmp_atalla.o -L../.. -lcrypto | 
|  | 268 | 5) Test your shared library using "openssl engine" as explained in the | 
|  | 269 | previous section. Eg. from the top-level directory, you might try; | 
|  | 270 | apps/openssl engine -vvvv dynamic \ | 
|  | 271 | -pre SO_PATH:./crypto/engine/dyn_atalla.so -pre LOAD | 
|  | 272 | If the shared-library loads successfully, you will see both "-pre" | 
|  | 273 | commands marked as "SUCCESS" and the list of control commands | 
|  | 274 | displayed (because of "-vvvv") will be the control commands for the | 
|  | 275 | *atalla* ENGINE (ie. *not* the 'dynamic' ENGINE). You can also add | 
|  | 276 | the "-t" switch to the utility if you want it to try and initialise | 
|  | 277 | the atalla ENGINE for use to test any possible hardware/driver | 
|  | 278 | issues. | 
|  | 279 |  | 
|  | 280 | PROBLEMS | 
|  | 281 | ======== | 
|  | 282 |  | 
|  | 283 | It seems like the ENGINE part doesn't work too well with CryptoSwift on Win32. | 
|  | 284 | A quick test done right before the release showed that trying "openssl speed | 
|  | 285 | -engine cswift" generated errors. If the DSO gets enabled, an attempt is made | 
|  | 286 | to write at memory address 0x00000002. | 
|  | 287 |  |