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jwhendy

Member

Registered: 2010-04-01

Posts: 621

[SOLVED] AES-NI Instructions are not detected (I think they should be)

Solution: I was a fool and thought my processor has AES-NI when it didn't! Silly me.

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Here's what I'm working with:

- Intel i7 processor, which appears to support AES-NI per wikipedia

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 30
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU       Q 720  @ 1.60GHz
stepping	: 5
cpu MHz		: 933.000
cache size	: 6144 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 8
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 4
apicid		: 0
initial apicid	: 0
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 11
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
bogomips	: 3193.12
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

- my custom kernel config options:

$ cat .config |grep -i aes
CONFIG_CRYPTO_AES=y
CONFIG_CRYPTO_AES_X86_64=y
CONFIG_CRYPTO_AES_NI_INTEL=y

- dmesg output:

$ dmesg |grep -i aes
[    2.324455] Intel AES-NI instructions are not detected.

Any suggestions? Does the AES-NI option have to be a module and built into the initramfs vs. being built into the kernel?

Thanks for any suggestions. Most of my searching just turns up people who don't want to see the error, but it's not clear whether they expect that AES-NI should actually be supported, such as this post.

Last edited by jwhendy (2011-11-03 14:51:34)

ethail

Member

From: Spain

Registered: 2011-02-10

Posts: 225

Re: [SOLVED] AES-NI Instructions are not detected (I think they should be)

double check if your processor really supports that at:

http://ark.intel.com/

not the wikipedia

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My GitHub Page

Best Testing Repo Warning: [testing] means it can eat you hamster, catch fire and you should keep it away from children. And I'm serious here, it's not an April 1st joke.

jwhendy

Member

Registered: 2010-04-01

Posts: 621

Re: [SOLVED] AES-NI Instructions are not detected (I think they should be)

@ethail: See above -- I updated with output of /proc/cpuinfo. Based on the model of Q 720, I'm guessing this is it: http://ark.intel.com/products/43122

If so, it supports it.

ethail

Member

From: Spain

Registered: 2011-02-10

Posts: 225

Re: [SOLVED] AES-NI Instructions are not detected (I think they should be)

Are you SURE that AES instrucctions are supported by your processor?

Are you 100% SURE?

because the page you linked says:

AES New Instructions : No

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My GitHub Page

Best Testing Repo Warning: [testing] means it can eat you hamster, catch fire and you should keep it away from children. And I'm serious here, it's not an April 1st joke.

falconindy

Developer

From: New York, USA

Registered: 2009-10-22

Posts: 4,111

Website

Re: [SOLVED] AES-NI Instructions are not detected (I think they should be)

Just like your original Wikipedia article says, prior to Sandy Bridge, the only Intel processors to support AES-NI are the Westmere-based processors. You should not be expecting support on your 720.

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blog | ±github

jwhendy

Member

Registered: 2010-04-01

Posts: 621

Re: [SOLVED] AES-NI Instructions are not detected (I think they should be)

@ethail: Wow. I have no idea what I first clicked, but I swore it said yes. It was very late Issue resolved. I should have looked into this more closely. Thanks for persisting.