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⇱ Cryptography Performance Improvements Coming For Linux 6.18 - Phoronix


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Cryptography Performance Improvements Coming For Linux 6.18

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 28 September 2025 at 06:09 AM EDT. Add A Comment
Adding to the list of pull requests submitted early in advance of the Linux 6.18 merge window opening are several cryptography-related improvements. In particular, some nice performance optimizations once again for the Linux kernel.

Google engineer Eric Biggers continues leading some very nice performance improvements in the cryptography space for the Linux kernel.

First up is a pull request adding interleaved SHA-256 hashing support. This 2-way interleaved SHA-256 hashing is immediately used by the FS-VERITY module for faster file data verification. In turn it's been observed that FS-VERITY performance improves nicely across many Intel/AMD x86_64 and AArch64 processors. Eric Biggers reported in the patch that it's roughly 35% faster performance.

👁 CPU and a safe... crypto


Also sent in was the FSCRYPT pull request for Linux 6.18. The focus there is on using HMAC-SHA512 library functions rather than going through crypto_shash. In turn FSCRYPT should enjoy this simpler and faster and more reliable code path.

Lastly there was a pull request sent out on Saturday for crypto library updates. This pull brings RISC-V optimized code for Poly1305, simplifies other code, and always enabling architecture-optimized BLAKE2s code.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.