Learn more about pfSense AES-NI Hardware Crypto Acceleration in KVM. Our pfSense Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

pfSense AES-NI Hardware Crypto Acceleration in KVM | About

pfSense is an open-source firewall and routing software that can be virtualized with KVM.

Furthermore, we can use the AES-NI instruction set on modern CPUs to boost cryptographic operations in a virtualized environment. Especially, within the KVM hypervisor.

AES-NI is a set of CPU instructions that help boost the encryption and decryption operations used in the AES algorithm. It helps secure data in different applications, like VPN tunnels, SSL/TLS connections, and disk encryption.

Traditional cryptographic operations tend to be complex. Especially when dealing with large volumes of data.

Hardware crypto acceleration, like AES-NI, passes off these operations to dedicated hardware on the CPU. This helps boost performance and reduce CPU utilization during encryption and decryption processes.

When we run pfSense as a VM under KVM, with AES-NI hardware crypto acceleration it can improve the performance of cryptographic tasks.

The virtualized pfSense instance takes advantage of the AES-NI instructions on the host CPU, resulting in faster encryption and decryption operations.

In fact, enabling AES-NI in KVM involves making sure that the host CPU supports AES-NI and that the feature is enabled in the VM’s configuration.

Furthermore, in many cases, AES-NI is automatically detected and used by pfSense when running in a KVM environment with a compatible CPU.

By using hardware crypto acceleration through AES-NI in KVM, pfSense can achieve better VPN throughput and boost overall cryptographic performance. This makes it a more efficient and secure solution for virtualized network environments.

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Conclusion

In summary, our Support Techs introduced us to AES-NI Hardware Crypto Acceleration in KVM.