Intel EP80579 User Manual

Intel

®

 EP80579 Software for Security Applications on Intel

®

 QuickAssist Technology

PG

August 2009

42

Order Number: 320183-004US

This chapter discusses what’s involved in building an application using the Intel

®

 

EP80579 Software for Security Applications on Intel

®

 QuickAssist Technology.

Added Note in 

 explaining cryptographic framework “shim” support.

There are a wide variety of security applications that can be developed using the Intel

®

 

EP80579 Software for Security Applications on Intel

®

 QuickAssist Technology.  

Each of these use cases will be described in more detail in later chapters within this 

document.  

Key use cases for the lookaside acceleration model are:

• A client may wish to use the Cryptographic API to accelerate cryptographic 

operations. This may be with a view to accelerating the encryption/decryption of 

“data at rest” — for example, files in a file system — or for protecting “data on the 

move” — for example, packets in a network. An existing application can be 

modified, or new code can be written from scratch, to use the Cryptographic API.

• In other cases, a client may be using a cryptographic framework, such as the 

OpenBSD* Cryptographic Framework (OCF). Intel supplies a driver which enables 

the Cryptographic features to be accessed via OCF; this driver is sometimes 

referred to as the “OCF shim”, or adapter. In this way, the cryptographic operations 

are transparently and seamlessly accelerated.
Note: The EP80579 security software release package version 1.0.3 does not 

support OpenBSD/FreeBSD Cryptographic Framework (OCF), OCF-Linux, or 

any open source projects such as Openswan*, OpenSSL*, or Racoon*. If 

your application requires OCF, you must use security software package 

version 1.0.2 which includes shim software to enable OCF support.

• A client may wish to accelerate a cryptographic protocol, such as IPSec. The open-

source Openswan* project is an implementation of IPSec that can use OCF for 

implementing cryptographic operations. By using the “OCF shim” described above, 

a client can utilize the seamless acceleration of the cryptographic operations.

See 

 for a 

more detailed description of these usage models.