oqsprovider - Open Quantum Safe provider for OpenSSL (3.x)

Purpose

This repository contains code to enable quantum-safe cryptography (QSC) in a standard OpenSSL (3.x) distribution by way of implementing a single shared library, the OQS provider.

Status

Currently this provider fully enables quantum-safe cryptography for KEM key establishment in TLS1.3 including management of such keys via the OpenSSL (3.0) provider interface and hybrid KEM schemes. Also, QSC signatures including CMS and CMP functionality are available via the OpenSSL EVP interface. Key persistence is provided via the encode/decode mechanism and X.509 data structures. Starting with OpenSSL 3.2 support for TLS1.3 signature functionality is available and final glitches for CMS have been resolved.

The standards implemented are documented in the separate file STANDARDS.md.

Algorithms

This implementation makes available the following quantum safe algorithms:

KEM algorithms

• BIKE: bikel1, p256_bikel1, x25519_bikel1, bikel3, p384_bikel3, x448_bikel3, bikel5, p521_bikel5
• CRYSTALS-Kyber: kyber512, p256_kyber512, x25519_kyber512, kyber768, p384_kyber768, x448_kyber768, x25519_kyber768, p256_kyber768, kyber1024, p521_kyber1024
• FrodoKEM: frodo640aes, p256_frodo640aes, x25519_frodo640aes, frodo640shake, p256_frodo640shake, x25519_frodo640shake, frodo976aes, p384_frodo976aes, x448_frodo976aes, frodo976shake, p384_frodo976shake, x448_frodo976shake, frodo1344aes, p521_frodo1344aes, frodo1344shake, p521_frodo1344shake
• HQC: hqc128, p256_hqc128, x25519_hqc128, hqc192, p384_hqc192, x448_hqc192, hqc256, p521_hqc256†

Signature algorithms

• CRYSTALS-Dilithium:dilithium2*, p256_dilithium2*, rsa3072_dilithium2*, dilithium3*, p384_dilithium3*, dilithium5*, p521_dilithium5*

• Falcon:falcon512*, p256_falcon512*, rsa3072_falcon512*, falcon1024*, p521_falcon1024*

• SPHINCS-SHA2:sphincssha2128fsimple*, p256_sphincssha2128fsimple*, rsa3072_sphincssha2128fsimple*, sphincssha2128ssimple*, p256_sphincssha2128ssimple*, rsa3072_sphincssha2128ssimple*, sphincssha2192fsimple*, p384_sphincssha2192fsimple*, sphincssha2192ssimple, p384_sphincssha2192ssimple, sphincssha2256fsimple, p521_sphincssha2256fsimple, sphincssha2256ssimple, p521_sphincssha2256ssimple

• SPHINCS-SHAKE:sphincsshake128fsimple*, p256_sphincsshake128fsimple*, rsa3072_sphincsshake128fsimple*, sphincsshake128ssimple, p256_sphincsshake128ssimple, rsa3072_sphincsshake128ssimple, sphincsshake192fsimple, p384_sphincsshake192fsimple, sphincsshake192ssimple, p384_sphincsshake192ssimple, sphincsshake256fsimple, p521_sphincsshake256fsimple, sphincsshake256ssimple, p521_sphincsshake256ssimple

As the underlying liboqs at build time may be configured to not enable all algorithms, it is advisable to check the possible subset of algorithms actually enabled via the standard commands, i.e., openssl list -signature-algorithms -provider oqsprovider and openssl list -kem-algorithms -provider oqsprovider.

In addition, algorithms not denoted with "*" above are not enabled for TLS operations. This designation can be changed by modifying the "enabled" flags in the main alorithm configuration file.

In order to support parallel use of classic and quantum-safe cryptography this provider also provides different hybrid algorithms, combining classic and quantum-safe methods: These are listed above with a prefix denoting a classic algorithm, e.g., for elliptic curve: "p256_".

A full list of algorithms, their interoperability code points and OIDs as well as a method to dynamically adapt them, e.g., for interoperability testing are documented in ALGORITHMS.md.

Building and testing -- Quick start

All component builds and testing described in detail below can be executed by running the scripts scripts/fullbuild.sh and scripts/runtests.sh respectively (tested on Linux Ubuntu and Mint as well as MacOS).

By default, these scripts always build and test against the current OpenSSL master branch.

These scripts can be configured by setting various variables. Please note that these scripts do not install oqsprovider. This can be facilitated by running cmake --install _build (and following the activation instructions.

Building and testing

The below describes the basic build-test-install cycle using the standard cmake tooling. Platform-specific notes are available for UNIX (incl. MacOS and cygwin) and Windows.

Configuration options

All options to configure oqs-provider at build- or run-time are documented in CONFIGURE.md.

Pre-requisites

To be able to build oqsprovider, OpenSSL 3.0 and liboqs need to be installed. It's not important where they are installed, just that they are. If installed in non-standard locations, these must be provided when running cmake via the variables "OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR" and "liboqs_DIR". See CONFIGURE.md for details.

Basic steps

cmake -S . -B _build && cmake --build _build && ctest --test-dir _build && cmake --install _build

Using

Usage of oqsprovider is documented in the separate USAGE.md file.

Note on OpenSSL versions

oqsprovider is written to ensure building on all versions of OpenSSL supporting the provider concept. However, OpenSSL still is in active development regarding features supported via the provider interface. Therefore some functionalities documented above are only supported with specific OpenSSL versions:

3.0/3.1

In these versions, CMS functionality implemented in providers is not supported: The resolution of openssl/openssl#17717 has not been not getting back-ported to OpenSSL3.0.

Also not supported in this version are provider-based signature algorithms used during TLS1.3 operations as documented in openssl/openssl#10512.

3.2(-dev)

After openssl/openssl#19312 landed, (also PQ) signature algorithms are working in TLS1.3 (handshaking); after openssl/openssl#20486 has landed, also algorithms with very long signatures are supported.

For general OpenSSL implementation limitations, e.g., regarding provider feature usage and support, see here.

Team

The Open Quantum Safe project is led by Douglas Stebila and Michele Mosca at the University of Waterloo.

Contributors to the oqsprovider include:

• Michael Baentsch
• Christian Paquin
• Richard Levitte
• Basil Hess
• Julian Segeth
• Alex Zaslavsky
• Will Childs-Klein
• Thomas Bailleux

History

Documentation on current and past releases ("code history") is documented in the separate file RELEASE.md.

Acknowledgments

The oqsprovider project is supported through the NGI Assure Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 957073.

Financial support for the development of Open Quantum Safe has been provided by Amazon Web Services and the Tutte Institute for Mathematics and Computing.

The OQS project would like to make a special acknowledgement to the companies who have dedicated programmer time to contribute source code to OQS, including Amazon Web Services, evolutionQ, Microsoft Research, Cisco Systems, and IBM Research.

Research projects which developed specific components of OQS have been supported by various research grants, including funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); see here and here for funding acknowledgments.