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HIFN(4)			    Kernel Interfaces Manual		       HIFN(4)

NAME
       hifn -- Hifn 7751/7951/7811/7955/7956 crypto accelerator

SYNOPSIS
       To  compile  this  driver into the kernel, place	the following lines in
       your kernel configuration file:

	     device crypto
	     device cryptodev
	     device hifn

       Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at	boot time,  place  the
       following line in loader.conf(5):

	     hifn_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION
       The  hifn driver	supports various cards containing the Hifn 7751, 7951,
       7811, 7955, and 7956 chipsets.

       The hifn	driver registers itself	 to  accelerate	 AES  (7955  and  7956
       only), SHA1, and	SHA1-HMAC operations for ipsec(4) and crypto(4).

       The Hifn	7951, 7811, 7955, and 7956 will	also supply data to the	kernel
       random(4) subsystem.

HARDWARE
       The  hifn driver	supports various cards containing the Hifn 7751, 7951,
       7811, 7955, and 7956 chipsets, such as:

	     Invertex AEON   No	longer being made.  Came as 128KB SRAM	model,
			     or	2MB DRAM model.

	     Hifn 7751	     Reference board with 512KB	SRAM.

	     PowerCrypt	     Comes with	512KB SRAM.

	     XL-Crypt	     Only  board  based	 on 7811 (which	is faster than
			     7751 and has a random number generator).

	     NetSec 7751     Supports the most IPsec sessions, with 1MB	SRAM.

	     Soekris Engineering vpn1201 and vpn1211
			     See http://www.soekris.com/.  Contains a 7951 and
			     supports symmetric	and random number operations.

	     Soekris Engineering vpn1401 and vpn1411
			     See http://www.soekris.com/.  Contains a 7955 and
			     supports symmetric	and random number operations.

SEE ALSO
       crypto(4), intro(4), ipsec(4), random(4), crypto(7), crypto(9)

HISTORY
       The hifn	device driver appeared in OpenBSD 2.7.	The hifn device	driver
       was imported to FreeBSD 5.0.

CAVEATS
       The Hifn	9751 shares the	same PCI ID.  This chip	is basically  a	 7751,
       but  with  the  cryptographic  functions	missing.  Instead, the 9751 is
       only capable of doing compression.  Since we do not  currently  attempt
       to  use	any of these chips to do compression, the 9751-based cards are
       not useful.

       Support for the 7955 and	7956 is	incomplete; the	asymmetric crypto  fa-
       cilities	are to be added	and the	performance is suboptimal.

BUGS
       The  7751 chip starts out at initialization by only supporting compres-
       sion.  A	proprietary algorithm, which has been reverse  engineered,  is
       required	 to unlock the cryptographic functionality of the chip.	 It is
       possible	for vendors to make boards which have a	lock ID	not  known  to
       the  driver, but	all vendors currently just use the obvious ID which is
       13 bytes	of 0.

FreeBSD	14.3			 July 29, 2020			       HIFN(4)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=hifn&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+14.3-RELEASE+and+Ports>

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