Re: [linux-next:master] [crypto] 2f204fe718: stress-ng.af-alg.ops_per_sec 113.7% improvement

Oliver Sang <[email protected]> Thu, 16 Jul 2026 15:04:56 +0800
Newsgroups dev.linux.lists.oe-lkp,org.kernel.vger.linux-crypto,org.kernel.vger.linux-doc
Message-ID <aliCmDna+pI1XQhD@xsang-OptiPlex-9020>
hi, Eric,

On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 04:27:49PM +0000, Eric Biggers wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 11:00:46PM +0800, kernel test robot wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > 
> > we don't have enough knowledge to deeply analyze the impact of this commit
> > to stress-ng.af-alg performance tests.
> > 
> > along with the major kpi improvement:
> > 
> >    7756377          +113.7%   16578454        stress-ng.af-alg.ops_per_sec
> > 
> > we also noticed lots of misc tests seem have changes, e.g.
> > 
> >     697423            -9.5%     630908 ±  2%  stress-ng.af-alg.aes_cipher_ops/sec
> >     245103          -100.0%       0.00        stress-ng.af-alg.blowfish_cipher_ops/sec
> >     369646          -100.0%       0.00        stress-ng.af-alg.camellia_cipher_ops/sec
> >     162192          -100.0%       0.00        stress-ng.af-alg.cast5_cipher_ops/sec
> >     115113          -100.0%       0.00        stress-ng.af-alg.cast6_cipher_ops/sec
> > 
> > we don't know if these are expected behavior upon 2f204fe718.
> > so this report is just FYI what we observed in our tests.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > kernel test robot noticed a 113.7% improvement of stress-ng.af-alg.ops_per_sec on:
> > 
> > 
> > commit: 2f204fe718f5bf519013cc2536ad7bb2cbb51661 ("crypto: af_alg - Add af_alg_restrict sysctl, defaulting to 1")
> > https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git master
> 
> That commit makes AF_ALG block access to some algorithms by default,
> overridable by a sysctl.  Apparently these performance tests
> misinterpret that as a change in performance.
> 
> It actually doesn't make much sense to do performance testing on AF_ALG
> at all anymore, given that AF_ALG is deprecated.  A limited form of
> AF_ALG is being left in place just for backwards compatibility with a
> few programs.  None of those programs use it in a performance-critical
> way, as far as I know.
> 
> To the extent that it's still done at all, it shouldn't test random
> algorithms like "ecb(cast5)" that are obsolete and unused.

thanks a lot for education! we will disable the test of AF_ALG.

> 
> - Eric