kcapi_aead_decrypt - Man Page

synchronously decrypt AEAD data (one shot)

Synopsis

ssize_t kcapi_aead_decrypt(struct kcapi_handle * handle, const uint8_t * in, size_t inlen, const uint8_t * iv, uint8_t * out, size_t outlen, int access);

Arguments

handle

[in] cipher handle

in

[in] ciphertext data buffer

inlen

[in] length of in buffer

iv

[in] IV to be used for cipher operation

out

[out] plaintext data buffer

outlen

[in] length of out buffer

access

[in] kernel access type (KCAPI_ACCESS_HEURISTIC - use internal heuristic for fastest kernel access; KCAPI_ACCESS_VMSPLICE use vmsplice access; KCAPI_ACCESS_SENDMSG sendmsg access)

Description

The AEAD cipher operation requires the furnishing of the associated authentication data​. In case such data is not required, it can be set to NULL and length value must be set to zero​.

It is perfectly legal to use the same buffer as the plaintext and ciphertext pointers​. That would mean that after the encryption operation, the ciphertext is overwritten with the plaintext​.

The memory should be aligned at the page boundary using posix_memalign(sysconf(_SC_PAGESIZE)), If it is not aligned at the page boundary, the vmsplice call may not send all data to the kernel​.

The IV buffer must be exactly kcapi_cipher_ivsize bytes in size​.

To catch authentication errors (i​.e​. integrity violations) during the decryption operation, the return value of this call should be checked​. If this function returns -EBADMSG, an authentication error was detected​.

Important Note

The kernel will only process sysconf(_SC_PAGESIZE) * ALG_MAX_PAGES at one time​. Longer input data cannot be handled by the kernel​.

return number of bytes decrypted upon success; a negative errno-style error code if an error occurred

Author

Stephan Mueller <​smueller@chronox.de​>

Author.

Info

August 2026 libkcapi Manual 1.5.1 Programming Interface