mbedtls/docs/architecture/psa-migration/md-cipher-dispatch.md

PSA migration strategy for hashes and ciphers

Introduction

This document discusses a migration strategy for code that is not subject to MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO, is currently using legacy cryptography APIs, and should transition to PSA, without a major version change.

Relationship with the main strategy document

This is complementary to the main strategy document and is intended as a refinement. However, at this stage, there may be contradictions between the strategy proposed here and some of the earlier strategy.

A difference between the original strategy and the current one is that in this work, we are not treating PSA as a black box. We can change experimental features, and we can call internal interfaces.

Requirements

User stories

Backward compatibility user story

As a developer of an application that uses Mbed TLS's interfaces (including legacy crypto),
I want Mbed TLS to preserve backward compatibility,
so that my code keeps working in new minor versions of Mbed TLS.

Interface design user story

As a developer of library code that uses Mbed TLS to perform cryptographic operations,
I want to know which functions to call and which feature macros to check,
so that my code works in all Mbed TLS configurations.

Note: this is the same problem we face in X.509 and TLS.

Hardware accelerator vendor user stories

As a vendor of a platform with hardware acceleration for some crypto,
I want to build Mbed TLS which uses my hardware wherever relevant,
so that my customers maximally benefit from my hardware.

As a vendor of a platform with hardware acceleration for some crypto,
I want to build Mbed TLS without software that replicates what my hardware does,
to minimize the code size.

Maintainer user stories

As a maintainer of Mbed TLS,
I want to have clear rules for when to use which interface,
to avoid bugs in “unusual” configurations.

As a maintainer of Mbed TLS,
I want to avoid duplicating code,
because this is inefficient and error-prone.

Use PSA more

In the long term, all code using cryptography should use PSA interfaces, to benefit from PSA drivers, allow eliminating legacy interfaces (less code size, less maintenance). However, this can't be done without breaking backward compatibility.

The goal of this work is to arrange for more non-PSA interfaces to use PSA interfaces under the hood, without breaking code in the cases where this doesn't work. Using PSA interfaces has two benefits:

• Where a PSA driver is available, it likely has better performance, and sometimes better security, than the built-in software implementation.
• In many scenarios, where a PSA driver is available, this allows removing the software implementation altogether.
• We may be able to get rid of some redundancies, for example the duplication between the implementations of HMAC in md.c and in psa_crypto_mac.c, and HKDF in hkdf.c and psa_crypto.c.

Correct dependencies

Traditionally, to determine whether a cryptographic mechanism was available, you had to check whether the corresponding Mbed TLS module or submodule was present: MBEDTLS_SHA256_C for SHA256, MBEDTLS_AES_C && MBEDTLS_CIPHER_MODE_CBC for AES-CBC, etc. In code that uses the PSA interfaces, this needs to change to PSA_WANT_xxx symbols.

Backward compatibility

All documented behavior must be preserved, except for interfaces currently described as experimental or unstable. Those interfaces can change, but we should minimize disruption by providing a transition path for reasonable use cases.

Changeable configuration options

The following configuration options are described as experimental, and are likely to change at least marginally:

• MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_CLIENT: “This interface is experimental and may change or be removed without notice.” In practice we don't want to remove this, but we may constrain how it's used.
• MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_DRIVERS: “This interface is experimental. We intend to maintain backward compatibility with application code that relies on drivers, but the driver interfaces may change without notice.” In practice, this may mean constraints not only on how to write drivers, but also on how to integrate drivers into code that is platform code more than application code.

Non-goals

It is not a goal at this stage to make more code directly call psa_xxx functions. Rather, the goal is to make more code call PSA drivers where available. How dispatch is done is secondary.

Problem analysis

Scope analysis

Limitations of MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO

MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO only applies to pk.h, X.509 and TLS. When this option is enabled, applications must call psa_crypto_init() before calling any of the functions in these modules.

In this work, we want two things:

• Partially apply MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO to non-covered modules, but only when this will actually work.
• Effectively apply MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO when a covered module calls a non-covered module which calls another module, for example X.509 calling pk for PSS verification which calls RSA which calculates a hash (see issue #6497).

Classification of callers

We can classify code that implements or uses cryptographic mechanisms into several groups:

• Software implementations of primitive cryptographic mechanisms. These are not expected to change.
• Software implementations of constructed cryptographic mechanisms (e.g. HMAC, CTR_DRBG, RSA (calling a hash for PSS/OAEP), …). These need to keep working whenever a legacy implementation of the auxiliary mechanism is available, even if a PSA implementation is also available.
• Code implementing the PSA crypto interface. This is not expected to change, except perhaps to expose some internal functionality to overhauled glue code.
• Code that's subject to MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO: pk.h, X.509, TLS (excluding TLS 1.3).
• Code that always uses PSA for crypto: TLS 1.3, LMS.

For the purposes of this work, three domains emerge:

• Legacy domain: does not interact with PSA. Implementations of hashes, of cipher primitives, of arithmetic.
• Mixed domain: does not currently use PSA, but should when possible. This consists of the constructed cryptographic primitives (except LMS), as well as pk, X.509 and TLS when MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO is disabled.
• PSA domain: includes pk, X.509 and TLS when MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO is enabled. Also TLS 1.3, LMS.

Non-use-PSA modules

The following modules in Mbed TLS call another module to perform cryptographic operations which, in the long term, will be provided through a PSA interface, but cannot make any PSA-related assumption:

• CCM (block cipher in ECB mode; interdependent with cipher)
• cipher (cipher and AEAD algorithms)
• CMAC (AES-ECB and DES-ECB, but could be extended to the other block ciphers; interdependent with cipher)
• CTR_DRBG (AES-ECB, but could be extended to the other block ciphers)
• entropy (hashes via low-level)
• ECDSA (hashes via md; md.h exposed through API)
• ECJPAKE (HMAC_DRBG; md.h exposed through API)
• GCM (block cipher in ECB mode; interdependent with cipher)
• md (hashes and HMAC)
• NIST_KW (AES-ECB; interdependent with cipher)
• HMAC_DRBG (hashes and HMAC via md.h; md.h exposed through API)
• PEM (AES and DES in CBC mode without padding; MD5 hash via low-level)
• PKCS12 (cipher, generically, selected from ASN.1 or function parameters; hashes via md; cipher.h exposed through API)
• PKCS5 (cipher, generically, selected from ASN.1; HMAC via md.h; md.h exposed through API)
• RSA (hash via md for PSS and OAEP; md.h exposed through API)

Difficulties

Why PSA is not always possible

Here are some reasons why calling psa_xxx() to perform a hash or cipher calculation might not be desirable in some circumstances, explaining why the application would arrange to call the legacy software implementation instead.

• MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_C is disabled.
• There is a PSA driver which has not been initialized (this happens in psa_crypto_init()).
• The requested mechanism is enabled in the legacy interface but not in the PSA interface. This was not really intended, but is possible, for example, if you enable MBEDTLS_MD5_C for PEM decoding with PBKDF1 but don't want PSA_ALG_WANT_MD5 because it isn't supported for PSA_ALG_RSA_PSS and PSA_ALG_DETERMINISTIC_ECDSA.
• MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_CLIENT is enabled, and the client has not yet activated the connection to the server (this happens in psa_crypto_init()).
• MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_CLIENT is enabled, but the local implementation is faster because it avoids a remote procedure call.

Indirect knowledge

Consider for example the code in rsa.c to perform an RSA-PSS signature. It needs to calculate a hash. If mbedtls_rsa_rsassa_pss_sign() is called directly by application code, it is supposed to call the built-in implementation: calling a PSA accelerator would be a behavior change, acceptable only if this does not add a risk of failure or performance degradation (PSA is impossible or undesirable in some circumstances). Note that this holds regardless of the state of MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO, since rsa.h is outside the scopre of MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO. On the other hand, if mbedtls_rsa_rsassa_pss_sign() is called from X.509 code, it should use PSA to calculate hashes. It doesn't, currently, which is bug #6497.

Generally speaking, modules in the mixed domain:

• must call PSA if called by a module in the PSA domain;
• must not call PSA (or must have a fallback) if their caller is not in the PSA domain and the PSA call is not guaranteed to work.

Non-support guarantees: requirements

Generally speaking, just because some feature is not enabled in mbedtls_config.h or psa_config.h doesn't guarantee that it won't be enabled in the build. We can enable additional features through build_info.h.

If PSA_WANT_xxx is disabled, this should guarantee that attempting xxx through the PSA API will fail. This is generally guaranteed by the test suite test_suite_psa_crypto_not_supported with automatically enumerated test cases, so it would be inconvenient to carve out an exception.

Technical requirements

Based on the preceding analysis, the core of the problem is: for code in the mixed domain (see “Classification of callers”), how do we handle a cryptographic mechanisms? This has several related subproblems:

• How the mechanism is encoded (e.g. mbedtls_md_type_t vs const *mbedtls_md_info_t vs psa_algorithm_t for hashes).
• How to decide whether a specific algorithm or key type is supported (eventually based on MBEDTLS_xxx_C vs PSA_WANT_xxx).
• How to obtain metadata about algorithms (e.g. hash/MAC/tag size, key size).
• How to perform the operation (context type, which functions to call).

We need a way to decide this based on the available information:

• Who's the ultimate caller — see indirect knowledge — which is not actually available.
• Some parameter indicating which algorithm to use.
• The available cryptographic implementations, based on preprocessor symbols (MBEDTLS_xxx_C, PSA_WANT_xxx, MBEDTLS_PSA_ACCEL_xxx, etc.).
• Possibly additional runtime state (for example, we might check whether psa_crypto_init has been called).

And we need to take care of the the cases where PSA is not possible: either make sure the current behavior is preserved, or (where allowed by backward compatibility) document a behavior change and, preferably, a workaround.

Working through an example: RSA-PSS

Let us work through the example of RSA-PSS which calculates a hash, as in see issue #6497.

RSA is in the mixed domain. So:

• When called from psa_sign_hash and other PSA functions, it must call the PSA hash accelerator if there is one.
• When called from user code, it must call the built-in hash implementation if PSA is not available.

RSA knows which hash algorithm to use based on a parameter of type mbedtls_md_type_t. (More generally, all mixed-domain modules that take an algorithm specification as a parameter take it via a numerical type, except HMAC_DRBG and HKDF which take a const mbedtls_md_info_t* instead, and CMAC which takes a const mbedtls_cipher_info_t *.)

Double encoding solution

A natural solution is to double up the encoding of hashes in mbedtls_md_type_t. Pass MBEDTLS_MD_SHA256 and md will dispatch to the legacy code, pass a new constant MBEDTLS_MD_SHA256_USE_PSA and md will dispatch through PSA.

This maximally preserves backward compatibility, but then no non-PSA code benefits from PSA accelerators, and there's little potential for removing the software implementation.

Availability of hashes in RSA-PSS

Here we try to answer the question: As a caller of RSA-PSS via rsa.h, how do I know whether it can use a certain hash?

• For a caller in the legacy domain: if e.g. MBEDTLS_SHA256_C is enabled, then I want RSA-PSS to support SHA-256. I don't care about negative support. So MBEDTLS_SHA256_C must imply support for RSA-PSS-SHA-256. It must work at all times, regardless of the state of PSA (e.g. drivers not initialized).
• For a caller in the PSA domain: if e.g. PSA_WANT_ALG_SHA_256 is enabled, then I want RSA-PSS to support SHA-256, provided that psa_crypto_init() has been called. In some limited cases, such as test_suite_psa_crypto_not_supported when PSA implements RSA-PSS in software, we care about negative support: if PSA_WANT_ALG_SHA_256 then psa_verify_hash must reject PSA_WANT_ALG_SHA_256. This can be done at the level of PSA before it calls the RSA module, though, so it doesn't have any implication on the RSA module. As far as rsa.c is concerned, what matters is that PSA_WANT_ALG_SHA_256 implies that SHA-256 is supported after psa_crypto_init() has been called.
• For a caller in the mixed domain: requirements depend on the caller. Whatever solution RSA has to determine the availability of algorithms will apply to its caller as well.

Conclusion so far: RSA must be able to do SHA-256 if either MBEDTLS_SHA256_C or PSA_WANT_ALG_SHA_256 is enabled. If only PSA_WANT_ALG_SHA_256 and not MBEDTLS_SHA256_C is enabled (which implies that PSA's SHA-256 comes from an accelerator driver), then SHA-256 only needs to work if psa_crypto_init() has been called.

More in-depth discussion of compile-time availability determination

The following combinations of compile-time support are possible:

• MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_CLIENT. Then calling PSA may or may not be desirable for performance. There are plausible use cases where only the server has access to an accelerator so it's best to call the server, and plausible use cases where calling the server has overhead that negates the savings from using acceleration, if there are savings at all. In any case, calling PSA only works if the connection to the server has been established, meaning psa_crypto_init has been called successfully. In the rest of this case enumeration, assume MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_CLIENT is disabled.
• No PSA accelerator. Then just call mbedtls_sha256, it's all there is, and it doesn't matter (from an API perspective) exactly what call chain leads to it.
• PSA accelerator, no software implementation. Then we might as well call the accelerator, unless it's important that the call fails. At the time of writing, I can't think of a case where we would want to guarantee that if MBEDTLS_xxx_C is not enabled, but xxx is enabled through PSA, then a request to use algorithm xxx through some legacy interface must fail.
• Both PSA acceleration and the built-in implementation. In this case, we would prefer PSA for the acceleration, but we can only do this if the accelerator driver is working. For hashes, it's enough to assume the driver is initialized, and in Mbed TLS 3.3 we've required hash drivers to work without initialization. For ciphers, this is more complicated because the cipher functions require the keystore, and plausibly a cipher accelerator might want entropy (for side channel countermeasures) which might not be available at boot time.

Note that it's a bit tricky to determine which algorithms are available. In the case where there is a PSA accelerator but no software implementation, we don't want the preprocessor symbols to indicate that the algorithm is available through the legacy domain, only through the PSA domain. What does this mean for the interfaces in the mixed domain? They can't guarantee the availability of the algorithm, but they must try if requested.

Designing an interface for hashes

In this section, we specify a hash metadata and calculation for the mixed domain, i.e. code that can be called both from legacy code and from PSA code.

Availability of hashes

Generalizing the analysis in “Availability of hashes in RSA-PSS”:

A hash is available through the mixed-domain interface iff either of the following conditions is true:

• A legacy hash interface is available and the hash algorithm is implemented in software.
• PSA crypto is enabled and the hash algorithm is implemented via PSA.

We could go further and make PSA accelerators available to legacy callers that call any legacy hash interface, e.g. md.h or shaX.h. There is little point in doing this, however: callers should just use the mixed-domain interface.

Shape of the mixed-domain hash interface

We now need to create an abstraction for mixed-domain hash calculation. (We could not create an abstraction, but that would require every piece of mixed-domain code to replicate the logic here. We went that route in Mbed TLS 3.3, but it made it effectively impossible to get something that works correctly.)

Requirements: given a hash algorithm,

• Obtain some metadata about it (size, block size).
• Calculate the hash.
• Set up a multipart operation to calculate the hash. The operation must support update, finish, reset, abort, clone.

The existing interface in md.h is close to what we want, but not perfect. What's wrong with it?

• It has an extra step of converting from mbedtls_md_type_t to const mbedtls_md_info_t *.
• It includes extra fluff such as names and HMAC. This costs code size.
• The md module has some legacy baggage dating from when it was more open, which we don't care about anymore. This costs code size.

These problems are easily solvable.

• mbedtls_md_info_t can become a very thin type. We can't remove the extra function call from the source code of callers, but we can make it a very thin abstraction that compilers can often optimize.
• We can make names and HMAC optional. The mixed-domain hash interface won't be the full MBEDTLS_MD_C but a subset.
• We can optimize md.c without making API changes to md.h.

Specification

MD light

https://github.com/Mbed-TLS/mbedtls/pull/6474 implements part of this specification, but it's based on Mbed TLS 3.2, so it needs to be rewritten for 3.3.

Definition of MD light

MD light is a subset of md.h that implements the hash calculation interface described in ”Designing an interface for hashes”. It is activated by MBEDTLS_MD_LIGHT in mbedtls_config.h.

The following things enable MD light automatically in build_info.h:

• A mixed-domain module that needs to calculate hashes is enabled.
• MBEDTLS_MD_C is enabled.

MD light includes the following types:

• mbedtls_md_type_t
• mbedtls_md_info_t
• mbedtls_md_context_t

MD light includes the following functions:

• mbedtls_md_info_from_type
• mbedtls_md_init
• mbedtls_md_free
• mbedtls_md_setup — but hmac must be 0 if MBEDTLS_MD_C is disabled.
• mbedtls_md_clone
• mbedtls_md_get_size
• mbedtls_md_get_type
• mbedtls_md_starts
• mbedtls_md_update
• mbedtls_md_finish

Unlike the full MD, MD light does not support null pointers as as mbedtls_md_context_t *. At least some functions still need to support null pointers as const mbedtls_md_info_t * because this arises when you try to use an unsupported algorithm (mbedtls_md_info_from_type returns NULL).

MD algorithm support macros

For each hash algorithm, md.h defines a macro MBEDTLS_MD_CAN_xxx whenever the corresponding hash is available through MD light. These macros are only defined when MBEDTLS_MD_LIGHT is enabled. Per “Availability of hashes”, MBEDTLS_MD_CAN_xxx is enabled if:

• the corresponding MBEDTLS_xxx_C is defined; or
• one of MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_C or MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_CLIENT is enabled, and the corresponding PSA_WANT_ALG_xxx is enabled.

Note that some algorithms have different spellings in legacy and PSA. Since MD is a legacy interface, we'll use the legacy names. Thus, for example:

#if defined(MBEDTLS_MD_LIGHT)
#if defined(MBEDTLS_SHA256_C) || \
    ((defined(MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_C) || defined(MBEDTLS_PSA_CRYPTO_CLIENT)) && \
     PSA_WANT_ALG_SHA_256)
#define MBEDTLS_MD_CAN_SHA256
#endif
#endif

MD light internal support macros

• If at least one hash has a PSA driver, define MBEDTLS_MD_SOME_PSA.
• If at least one hash has a legacy implementation, defined MBEDTLS_MD_SOME_LEGACY.

Support for PSA in the MD context

An MD context needs to contain either a legacy module's context (or a pointer to one, as is the case now), or a PSA context (or a pointer to one).

I am inclined to remove the pointer indirection, but this means that an MD context would always be as large as the largest supported hash context. So for the time being, this specification keeps a pointer. For uniformity, PSA will also have a pointer (we may simplify this later).

enum {
    MBEDTLS_MD_ENGINE_LEGACY,
    MBEDTLS_MD_ENGINE_PSA,
} mbedtls_md_engine_t; // private type

typedef struct mbedtls_md_context_t {
    const mbedtls_md_type_t type;
    const mbedtls_md_engine_t engine;
    union {
#if defined(MBEDTLS_MD_SOME_LEGACY)
        void *legacy; // used if engine == LEGACY
#endif
#if defined(MBEDTLS_MD_SOME_PSA)
        psa_hash_operation_t *psa; // used if engine == PSA
#endif
    } digest;
#if defined(MBEDTLS_MD_C)
    void *hmac_ctx;
#endif
} mbedtls_md_context_t;

All fields are private.

The engine field is almost redundant with knowledge about type. However, when an algorithm is available both via a legacy module and a PSA accelerator, we will choose based on the runtime availability of the accelerator when the context is set up. This choice needs to be recorded in the context structure.

Inclusion of MD info structures

MD light needs to support hashes that are only enabled through PSA. Therefore the mbedtls_md_info_t structures must be included based on MBEDTLS_MD_CAN_xxx instead of just the legacy module.

The same criterion applies in mbedtls_md_info_from_type.

Conversion to PSA encoding

The implementation needs to convert from a legacy type encoding to a PSA encoding.

static inline psa_algorithm_t psa_alg_of_md_info(
    const mbedtls_md_info_t *md_info );

Determination of PSA support at runtime

int psa_can_do_hash(psa_algorithm_t hash_alg);

The job of this private function is to return 1 if hash_alg can be performed through PSA now, and 0 otherwise. It is only defined on algorithms that are enabled via PSA.

As a starting point, return 1 if PSA crypto has been initialized. This will be refined later (to return 1 if the accelerator subsystem has been initialized).

Support for PSA dispatch in hash operations

Each function that performs some hash operation or context management needs to know whether to dispatch via PSA or legacy.

If given an established context, use its engine field.

If given an algorithm as an mbedtls_md_type_t type (possibly being the type field of a const mbedtls_md_info_t *):

• If there is a PSA accelerator for this hash and psa_can_do_hash(alg), call the corresponding PSA function, and if applicable set the engine to MBEDTLS_MD_ENGINE_PSA. (Skip this is MBEDTLS_MD_SOME_PSA is not defined.)
• Otherwise dispatch to the legacy module based on the type as currently done. (Skip this is MBEDTLS_MD_SOME_LEGACY is not defined.)
• If no dispatch is possible, return MBEDTLS_ERR_MD_FEATURE_UNAVAILABLE.

Note that this assumes that an operation that has been started via PSA can be completed. This implies that mbedtls_psa_crypto_free must not be called while an operation using PSA is in progress. Document this.

Error code conversion

After calling a PSA function, call mbedtls_md_error_from_psa to convert its status code. This function is currently defined in hash_info.c.

Migration to MD light

Migration of modules that used to call MD and now do the legacy-or-PSA dance

Get rid of the case where MBEDTLS_MD_C is undefined. Enable MBEDTLS_MD_LIGHT in build_info.h.

Migration of modules that used to call a low-level hash module and now do the legacy-or-PSA dance

Switch to calling MD (light) unconditionally. Enable MBEDTLS_MD_LIGHT in build_info.h.

Migration of modules that call a low-level hash module

Switch to calling MD (light). Enable MBEDTLS_MD_LIGHT in build_info.h.

Migration of use-PSA mixed code

Instead of calling hash_info.h functions to obtain metadata, get it from md.h.

Optionally, code that currently tests on MBEDTLS_USE_PSA_CRYPTO just to determine whether to call MD or PSA to calculate hashes can switch to just having the MD variant.

Remove legacy_or_psa.h

It's no longer used.

MD light optimizations

This section is not necessary to implement MD light, but will cut down its code size.

Split names out of MD light

Remove hash names from mbedtls_md_info_t. Use a simple switch-case or a separate list to implement mbedtls_md_info_from_string and mbedtls_md_get_name.

Remove metadata from the info structure

In mbedtls_md_get_size and in modules that want a hash's block size, instead of looking up hash metadata in the info structure, call the PSA macros.

Optimize type conversions

To allow optimizing conversions between mbedtls_md_type_t and psa_algorithm_t, renumber the mbedtls_md_type_t enum so that the values are the 8 lower bits of the PSA encoding.

With this optimization,

static inline psa_algorithm_t psa_alg_of_md_info(
    const mbedtls_md_info_t *md_info )
{
    if( md_info == NULL )
        return( PSA_ALG_NONE );
    return( PSA_ALG_CATEGORY_HASH | md_info->type );
}

Work in progress on this conversion is at https://github.com/gilles-peskine-arm/mbedtls/tree/hash-unify-ids-wip-1

Get rid of the hash_info module

The hash_info module is redundant with MD light. Move mbedtls_md_error_from_psa to md.c, defined only when MBEDTLS_MD_SOME_PSA is defined. The rest is no longer used.

Unify HMAC with PSA

PSA has its own HMAC implementation. In builds with both MBEDTLS_MD_C and PSA_WANT_ALG_HMAC not fully provided by drivers, we should have a single implementation. Replace the one in md.h by calls to the PSA driver interface. This will also give mixed-domain modules access to HMAC accelerated directly by a PSA driver (eliminating the need to a HMAC interface in software if all supported hashes have an accelerator that includes HMAC support).