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IXP400 Software
Programmer’s Guide IXP400 Software Version 2.0 April 2005
Document Number: 252539, Revision: 007 87
Access-Layer Components:
Security (IxCryptoAcc) API 7
This chapter describes the Intel
®
IXP400 Software v2.0’s “Security API” IxCryptoAcc access-
layer component.
The Security Hardware Accelerator access component (IxCryptoAcc) provides support for
authentication and encryption/decryption services needed in cyrptographic applications, such as
IPSec authentication and encryption services, SSL or WEP. Depending on the cryptographic
algorithm used, cryptography clients can offload the task of encryption/decryption from the Intel
XScale core by using the crypto coprocessor. Clients can also offload the task of authentication by
using the hashing coprocessor.
7.1 What’s New
There are no changes to this component in software release 2.0. However, the API has been
enhanced by the creation of a new function alias.
ixCryptoAccHashPerform() has been added to help clarify that the API can be used to generate a
generic SHA1 or MD5 hash value. This function is aliased to
ixCryptoAccHashKeyGenerate().
7.2 Overview
The IxCryptoAcc component provides the following major capabilities:
• Operating modes:
— Encryption only
— Decryption only
— Authentication calculation only
— Authentication check only
— Encryption followed by authentication calculation (for IPSec and WEP clients)
— Authentication check followed by decryption (for IPSec and WEP clients)
• Cryptographic algorithms:
— DES (64-bit block cipher size, 64-bit key)
— Triple DES (64-bit block cipher size; three keys, 56-bit + 8-bit parity each = 192 bits total)
— AES (128-bit block cipher size; key sizes: 128-, 192-, 256-bit)
— ARC4 (8-bit block cipher size, 128-bit key)
• Μode of operation for encryption and decryption:
— NULL (for stream ciphers, like ARC4)