Re: the better slot?

On Wed, 27 May 2026 at 21:47, Andrew Cagney <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I think I've managed to track down why a machine was failing ML_KEM in
> libreswan, but it brings up several questions.
>
> First the libreswan bug:
>
> - the IKE_SA_INIT exchange generates a KE DH secret
> - this secret is fed into the KDF which returns keymat and a key D
> with slot A (I'm not sure where that slot came from)
> - the IKE_INTERMEDIATE exchange generates an ADDKE ML_KEM secret with
> an ML_KEM slot
> - D+ADDKE are then fed into the KDF (CKM_NSS_IKE_PRF_DERIVE) which
> barfs (fails gracefully) because ADDKE (.hNewKey) isn't in D's slot

We've figured out it has something to do with the on-disk NSS DB -
copy one DB to a new machine and the problem appears there.

> Presumably the fix is to get both D and ADDKE on the same slot:
>
> Q.1 But which is the better slot?  D or the one that was for ML_KEM?
> Q.2 Why would we only encounter the problem on one machine?
>
> More broadly:
>
> Do slots have any (multi threaded) performance implications?  For
> instance, in the above, I've a suspicion that D's slot is being shared
> across threads and is very long lived
>
> Andrew

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