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.Dd October 31, 2024
.Dt KTLS 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ktls
.Nd kernel Transport Layer Security
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Cd options KERN_TLS
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
facility allows the kernel to perform Transport Layer Security (TLS)
framing on TCP sockets.
With
.Nm ,
the initial handshake for a socket using TLS is performed in userland.
Once the session keys are negotiated,
they are provided to the kernel via the
.Dv TCP_TXTLS_ENABLE
and
.Dv TCP_RXTLS_ENABLE
socket options.
Both socket options accept a
.Vt struct tls_enable
structure as their argument.
The members of this structure describe the cipher suite used for the
TLS session and provide the session keys used for the respective
direction.
.Pp
.Nm
only permits the session keys to be set once in each direction.
As a result,
applications must disable rekeying when using
.Nm .
.Ss Modes
.Nm
can operate in different modes.
A given socket may use different modes for transmit and receive,
or a socket may only offload a single direction.
The available modes are:
.Bl -tag -width "Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_IFNET"
.It Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_NONE
.Nm
is not enabled.
.It Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_SW
TLS records are encrypted or decrypted in the kernel in the socket
layer via
.Xr crypto 9 .
Typically the encryption or decryption is performed in software,
but it may also be performed by co-processors.
.It Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_IFNET
TLS records are encrypted or decrypted by the network interface card (NIC).
In this mode, the network stack does not work with encrypted data.
Instead, the NIC encrypts TLS records as they are being transmitted,
or decrypts received TLS records before providing them to the host.
.Pp
Network interfaces which support this feature will advertise the
.Dv TXTLS4
(for IPv4)
and/or
.Dv TXTLS6
(for IPv6)
capabilities as reported by
.Xr ifconfig 8 .
These capabilities can also be controlled by
.Xr ifconfig 8 .
.Pp
If a network interface supports rate limiting
(also known as packet pacing) for TLS offload,
the interface will advertise the
.Dv TXTLS_RTLMT
capability.
.It Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_TOE
TLS records are encrypted by the NIC using a TCP offload engine (TOE).
This is similar to
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_IFNET
in that the network stack does not work with encrypted data.
However, this mode works in tandem with a TOE to handle interactions
between TCP and TLS.
.El
.Ss Transmit
Once TLS transmit is enabled by a successful set of the
.Dv TCP_TXTLS_ENABLE
socket option,
all data written on the socket is stored in TLS records and encrypted.
Most data is transmitted in application layer TLS records,
and the kernel chooses how to partition data among TLS records.
Individual TLS records with a fixed length and record type can be sent
by
.Xr sendmsg 2
with the TLS record type set in a
.Dv TLS_SET_RECORD_TYPE
control message.
The payload of this control message is a single byte holding the desired
TLS record type.
This can be used to send TLS records with a type other than
application data (for example, handshake messages) or to send
application data records with specific contents (for example, empty
fragments).
.Pp
The current TLS transmit mode of a socket can be queried via the
.Dv TCP_TXTLS_MODE
socket option.
A socket using TLS transmit offload can also set the
.Dv TCP_TXTLS_MODE
socket option to toggle between
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_SW
and
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_IFNET .
.Ss Receive
Once TLS receive is enabled by a successful set of the
.Dv TCP_RXTLS_ENABLE
socket option,
all data read from the socket is returned as decrypted TLS records.
Each received TLS record must be read from the socket using
.Xr recvmsg 2 .
Each received TLS record will contain a
.Dv TLS_GET_RECORD
control message along with the decrypted payload.
The control message contains a
.Vt struct tls_get_record
which includes fields from the TLS record header.
If an invalid or corrupted TLS record is received,
.Xr recvmsg 2
will fail with one of the following errors:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EINVAL
The version fields in a TLS record's header did not match the version required
by the
.Vt struct tls_enable
structure used to enable in-kernel TLS.
.It Bq Er EMSGSIZE
A TLS record's length was either too small or too large.
.It Bq Er EMSGSIZE
The connection was closed after sending a truncated TLS record.
.It Bq Er EBADMSG
The TLS record failed to match the included authentication tag.
.El
.Pp
The current TLS receive mode of a socket can be queried via the
.Dv TCP_RXTLS_MODE
socket option.
At present,
the mode cannot be changed.
.Ss Sysctl Nodes
.Nm
uses several sysctl nodes under the
.Va kern.ipc.tls
node.
A few of them are described below:
.Bl -tag -width ".Va kern.ipc.tls.cbc_enable"
.It Va kern.ipc.tls.enable
Determines if new kernel TLS sessions can be created.
.It Va kern.ipc.tls.cbc_enable
Determines if new kernel TLS sessions with a cipher suite using AES-CBC
can be created.
.It Va kern.ipc.tls.sw
A tree of nodes containing statistics for TLS sessions using
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_SW .
.It Va kern.ipc.tls.ifnet
A tree of nodes containing statistics for TLS sessions using
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_IFNET .
.It Va kern.ipc.tls.toe
A tree of nodes containing statistics for TLS sessions using
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_TOE .
.It Va kern.ipc.tls.stats
A tree of nodes containing various kernel TLS statistics.
.El
.Pp
The
.Va kern.ipc.mb_use_ext_pgs
sysctl controls whether the kernel may use unmapped mbufs.
They are required for TLS transmit.
.Ss Supported Hardware
The
.Xr cxgbe 4
and
.Xr mlx5en 4
drivers include support for the
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_IFNET
mode.
.Pp
The
.Xr cxgbe 4
driver includes support for the
.Dv TCP_TLS_MODE_TOE
mode.
.Ss Supported Libraries
OpenSSL 3.0 and later include support for
.Nm .
The
.Fa security/openssl*
and
.Fa security/gnutls
ports may also be built with support for
.Nm
by enabling the
.Dv KTLS
option.
OpenSSL in the base system includes KTLS support when built with
.Dv WITH_OPENSSL_KTLS .
.Pp
Applications using a supported library should generally work with
.Nm
without any changes provided they use standard interfaces such as
.Xr SSL_read 3
and
.Xr SSL_write 3 .
Additional performance may be gained by the use of
.Xr SSL_sendfile 3 .
.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
.Nm
assumes the presence of a direct map of physical memory when performing
software encryption and decryption.
As a result, it is only supported on architectures with a direct map.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr cxgbe 4 ,
.Xr mlx5en 4 ,
.Xr tcp 4 ,
.Xr src.conf 5 ,
.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
.Xr sysctl 8 ,
.Xr crypto 9
.Sh HISTORY
Kernel TLS first appeared in
.Fx 13.0 .