Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 15 Aug 2002 15:49:21 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 15 Aug 2002 15:49:19 -0400 Received: from mta11n.bluewin.ch ([195.186.1.211]:33317 "EHLO mta11n.bluewin.ch") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Thu, 15 Aug 2002 15:49:18 -0400 Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 21:52:31 +0200 From: Roger Luethi To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Dax Kelson , Alan Cox , "Kendrick M. Smith" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , "nfs@lists.sourceforge.net" , beepy@netapp.com, trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no Subject: Re: Will NFSv4 be accepted? Message-ID: <20020815195231.GA18239@k3.hellgate.ch> References:

Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.27i X-Operating-System: Linux 2.4.19 on i686 X-GPG-Fingerprint: 92 F4 DC 20 57 46 7B 95 24 4E 9E E7 5A 54 DC 1B X-GPG: 1024/80E744BD wwwkeys.ch.pgp.net Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2072 Lines: 45 On Thu, 15 Aug 2002 10:35:40 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > On Wed, 14 Aug 2002, Dax Kelson wrote: > > > > Q for Linus: What's the prospect of adding crypto to the kernel? > > For a good enough excuse, and with a good enough argument that it's not > likely to be a big export problem, I don't think it's impossible any more. > > However, the "good enough excuse" has to be better than "some technically > excellent, but not very widespread" thing. While I'm all for adding crypto to the standard kernel, I contend the crucial part is not strong crypto, but the API. With a stock kernel that merely offered rot13 type algorithms and a simple way to add more, we could sidestep the export issue [1] if necessary and still get important benefits. There have been some efforts to find a common platform (e.g. between the freeswan and the cryptoapi folks recently), but the driving force that brought us LSM is sorely missing with crypto, although the issue seems less complex. I won't comment on the technical excellence of the currently available solutions, but VPNs and disk encryption (especially for laptop owners) are quite likely to see (even more) widespread use in the near future. With Reiser4 it seems there is soon going to be another contender in local filesystems besides the loopback based ones. RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE are already selling products using kernel space encryption (i.e. VPNs and/or encrypted filesystems). IMHO the case for crypto in the kernel has already been made. The questions are rather: what would a kernel crypto facility look like if it was to be useful for all those projects out there, and who could pull an LSM on this one? Roger [1] Assuming that the times when even crypto _hooks_ were likely a felony are gone for good (for many countries anyway). IANAL, obviously. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/