[thirdparty/openssl.git] / README.ENGINE


  ENGINE
  ======

  With OpenSSL 0.9.6, a new component has been added to support external 
  crypto devices, for example accelerator cards.  The component is called
  ENGINE, and has still a pretty experimental status and almost no
  documentation.  It's designed to be faily easily extensible by the
  calling programs.

  There's currently built-in support for the following crypto devices:

      o CryptoSwift
      o Compaq Atalla
      o nCipher CHIL
      o Nuron

  A number of things are still needed and are being worked on:

      o A better way of handling the methods that are handled by the
        engines.
      o Documentation!

  What already exists is fairly stable as far as it has been tested, but
  the test base has been a bit small most of the time.


  No external crypto device is chosen unless you say so.  You have actively
  tell the openssl utility commands to use it through a new command line
  switch called "-engine".  And if you want to use the ENGINE library to
  do something similar, you must also explicitely choose an external crypto
  device, or the built-in crypto routines will be used, just as in the
  default OpenSSL distribution.


  PROBLEMS
  ========

  It seems like the ENGINE part doesn't work too well with Cryptoswift on
  Win32.  A quick test done right before the release showed that trying
  "openssl speed -engine cswift" generated errors.  If the DSO gets enabled,
  an attempt is made to write at memory address 0x00000002.
Commit	Line	Data
b22bda21 RL	1
	2	ENGINE
	3	======
	4
	5	With OpenSSL 0.9.6, a new component has been added to support external
	6	crypto devices, for example accelerator cards. The component is called
	7	ENGINE, and has still a pretty experimental status and almost no
	8	documentation. It's designed to be faily easily extensible by the
	9	calling programs.
	10
	11	There's currently built-in support for the following crypto devices:
	12
	13	o CryptoSwift
	14	o Compaq Atalla
	15	o nCipher CHIL
55d892e3	16	o Nuron
b22bda21 RL	17
	18	A number of things are still needed and are being worked on:
	19
b22bda21 RL	20	o A better way of handling the methods that are handled by the
	21	engines.
	22	o Documentation!
	23
	24	What already exists is fairly stable as far as it has been tested, but
	25	the test base has been a bit small most of the time.
	26
b22bda21 RL	27
	28	No external crypto device is chosen unless you say so. You have actively
	29	tell the openssl utility commands to use it through a new command line
	30	switch called "-engine". And if you want to use the ENGINE library to
	31	do something similar, you must also explicitely choose an external crypto
	32	device, or the built-in crypto routines will be used, just as in the
	33	default OpenSSL distribution.
	34
56245be4 RL	35
	36	PROBLEMS
	37	========
	38
	39	It seems like the ENGINE part doesn't work too well with Cryptoswift on
	40	Win32. A quick test done right before the release showed that trying
	41	"openssl speed -engine cswift" generated errors. If the DSO gets enabled,
	42	an attempt is made to write at memory address 0x00000002.
	43