KMS Performance Comparison

Versions: v5.29.0 Generated: 2026-10-09

Benchmark Environment

Load test parameters

CPU detail (lscpu)

Architecture:                            x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):                          32-bit, 64-bit
Address sizes:                           45 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
Byte Order:                              Little Endian
CPU(s):                                  8
On-line CPU(s) list:                     0-7
Vendor ID:                               GenuineIntel
Model name:                              Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4210R CPU @ 2.40GHz
CPU family:                              6
Model:                                   85
Thread(s) per core:                      1
Core(s) per socket:                      8
Socket(s):                               1
Stepping:                                7
BogoMIPS:                                4800.00
Flags:                                   fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon nopl xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc cpuid tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp ibrs_enhanced fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 invpcid avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves arat pku ospke avx512_vnni md_clear flush_l1d arch_capabilities
Hypervisor vendor:                       VMware
Virtualization type:                     full
L1d cache:                               256 KiB (8 instances)
L1i cache:                               256 KiB (8 instances)
L2 cache:                                8 MiB (8 instances)
L3 cache:                                13.8 MiB (1 instance)
NUMA node(s):                            1
NUMA node0 CPU(s):                       0-7
Vulnerability Gather data sampling:      Unknown: Dependent on hypervisor status
Vulnerability Indirect target selection: Mitigation; Aligned branch/return thunks
Vulnerability Itlb multihit:             KVM: Mitigation: VMX unsupported
Vulnerability L1tf:                      Not affected
Vulnerability Mds:                       Not affected
Vulnerability Meltdown:                  Not affected
Vulnerability Mmio stale data:           Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT Host state unknown
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling:    Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed:                  Mitigation; Enhanced IBRS
Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow:      Not affected
Vulnerability Spec store bypass:         Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1:                Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2:                Mitigation; Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB conditional; PBRSB-eIBRS SW sequence; BHI SW loop, KVM SW loop
Vulnerability Srbds:                     Not affected
Vulnerability Tsa:                       Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort:           Not affected
Vulnerability Vmscape:                   Not affected

Architecture

graph TB
    subgraph cli["Local Machine"]
        ckms["<b>ckms pkcs11 bench</b>"]
        lib["<b>cosmian_pkcs11.so</b>"]
    end

    subgraph srv["KMS Server"]
        kmip["KMIP 2.1"]
        oracle["CryptoOracle"]
    end

    subgraph hsm["Proteccio"]
        slot["PKCS#11 Slot"]
        keys["ECDSA<br/>(Resident)"]
    end

    ckms -->|C_Sign/C_Verify| lib
    lib -->|HTTP| kmip
    kmip --> oracle
    oracle -->|PKCS#11| slot
    slot --> keys

    style ckms fill:#4A90E2
    style lib fill:#FF6B6B
    style kmip fill:#7ED321
    style oracle fill:#F5A623
    style slot fill:#BD10E0

Components:

• ckms: PKCS#11 load test driver (mise run bench:pkcs11 --delegated --hsm-model proteccio)
• cosmian_pkcs11.so: PKCS#11 provider bridge
• KMIP Endpoint: Server-side protocol handler
• CryptoOracle: Routes operations to HSM-resident keys (C_Sign/C_Verify on Proteccio)
• PKCS#11 Slot: Proteccio backend for key storage and cryptographic ops

Protocols

The caller-facing protocol benchmarked here is the cosmian_pkcs11 provider's real PKCS#11 v3.1 Cryptoki C ABI: the benchmark dlopen()s the built shared library (libcosmian_pkcs11.{so,dylib}) and resolves its standard interface through C_GetInterface — the same call path v3-aware PKCS#11 consumers (Oracle TDE, OpenSSH, disk-encryption tools) use. For remote Sign, the provider wraps the KMIP operation in a KMIP 2.1 RequestMessage, serializes binary TTLV, and sends application/octet-stream to POST /kmip; the binary TTLV response is fully deserialized before C_SignMessage returns.

This delegated variant provisions hsm::<slot>::... keys. After the provider sends each KMIP request, KMS routes the key to its CryptoOracle; the cryptographic operation executes through the server-side Proteccio PKCS#11 backend rather than software crypto.

Benchmark Methodology

Real Cryptoki C ABI, one session per worker

The benchmark subcommand ckms pkcs11 bench (driven by mise run bench:pkcs11 --delegated --hsm-model proteccio) dlopen()s the built cosmian_pkcs11 shared library, resolves the v3.1 function table through C_GetInterface, and calls it directly — the same code path a real PKCS#11 consumer application uses, as opposed to mise bench:load, which drives the KMIP REST API directly through the ckms client library.

By default each worker thread owns a dedicated C_OpenSession handle. The provider looks the handle up in its session map and serializes only access to that individual session with a per-session lock, so unrelated worker sessions can progress independently. --shared-session is an opt-in comparison mode that reproduces the former single-session contention model; it is not the default methodology.

HSM-resident key execution

With --delegated, provisioning assigns hsm::<slot>::... UIDs and persists discovery tags in a versioned PKCS#11 CKA_LABEL envelope while retaining the raw key ID in CKA_ID. The provider locates those tagged keys through KMS, while operations are executed by the KMS CryptoOracle on the Proteccio backend. For full test suites on simulator tokens, submodes run against separate fresh tokens so cumulative key generation does not contaminate later measurements.

Independent operations

Unlike the software/HSM reports where requests may be bundled, this report measures each Cryptoki operation independently:

• Sign: C_SignInit/C_Sign (or C_MessageSignInit/C_SignMessage for Ed25519) crossing the synchronous PKCS#11 boundary
• Verify: C_VerifyInit/C_Verify implemented and benchmarked through the real Cryptoki function table

Load test (mise run bench:pkcs11 --delegated --hsm-model proteccio)

The load test sweeps a configurable list of concurrency levels, mirroring mise bench:load's own sweep mechanics exactly: at each level N concurrent OS threads call the target Cryptoki function in a tight loop for a fixed measurement window (default: 20 s), preceded by a warm-up phase (default: 5 s) that is excluded from measurements, followed by a cooldown (default: 2 s) before the next level. Recorded metrics per (operation, concurrency) pair:

• Throughput — Cryptoki calls per second
• p50 / p95 / p99 — per-call latency percentiles (ms)

Infrastructure note: The benchmark server uses a local SQLite backend (temporary, discarded after the run). Throughput figures will differ on a production deployment backed by PostgreSQL or Redis-Findex.

Load Tests

sign/ecdsa-p256

verify/ecdsa-p256