padlock_aes module

['chris']

hi

I have the following message on my Debin Lenny installed on the notebook:

Starting enhanced syslogd: rsyslogdmodprobe: WARNING: Error inserting padlock_aes(/lib/modules/2.6.26-2-686/kernel/drivers/crypto/padlock-aes.ko):
No such device

Which Hardware uses padlock_aes module or why my linux try to load during the start up?

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

The padlock_aes module would allow the kernel to use VIA's PadLock cryptographic accelerator functions, which are included in some newer VIA processors. This module performs AES encryption algorithm with PadLock hardware assist. There is also a PadLock module for the SHA1 algorithm.

VIA's x86-compatible processors consume very little electrical power, but don't have as much computational power as the top players of the x86 architecture, Intel and AMD. The hardware cryptographic functions are intended to make VIA's products more attractive in such mobile and embedded implementations where both minimized power consumption and strong encryption of all data is needed.

The reason for attempting to load the module may be the word "aes" in /etc/modules. Through the alias information embedded in the kernel modules themselves (and collected by the depmod command), "aes" maps essentially to "try to load whatever hardware AES crypto modules are available in this kernel configuration".

I guess the "aes" was added to /etc/modules by some heuristic in the Debian installer, or it was included into Lenny's defaults so that the HW crypto features would be automatically used, if present.

If your notebook does not have hardware AES features, you can remove the word "aes" from /etc/modules. If your notebook has a different hardware AES implementation, just replace the generic "aes" with the name of the correct module to get rid of the warning message.

MK