imx-ele-apps/aes_usage test with 50MB file fails

[HH_Mov]

As a test of the HSM on the i.MX93 the aes_usage test was ran with a 50MB file being en/decrypted.

However running the decryption on target resulted in:

./ele_aes_usage decrypt CTR /tmp/dummy-file.enc /tmp/dummy-file 0x3FFFFFFF > /dev/null
[ 1179.264527] fsl-se-fw se-fw2: hsm1_ch0: Not enough space in shared memory
[ 1179.271346] fsl-se-fw se-fw2: hsm1_ch0: Not enough space in shared memory
cipher_with_ele_cipher failed ret:0xff

(Encrypting a file resulted in the same issue)

For info: The reserved space for ele is 1MB

hexdump -C /proc/device-tree/reserved-memory/ele-reserved\@a4120000/reg
00000000  00 00 00 00 a4 12 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00  |................|
00000010

Is this a configuration issue, or should the decryption of a large file be handled differently ?

[HH_Mov]

Additional info:

The aes_usage app allocates output buffer space based on the size of the input.
Using a file of 125MB and more than 650MB of free RAM, this should not be an issue.

[Manuel_Salas]

Hello @HH_Mov 

I hope you are doing very well.

Kindly share your BSP version. 

Are you using a pre-compiled image? or did you compile your own (if so, please share the steps you followed)?

Best regards,

Salas.

[HH_Mov]

Hello Salas,

It is a custom yocto ScarthGap build, based on the karo and imx layers.

Running "ELE firmware version 2.0.0-64d8ef47" and Linux 6.6.52

The aes_usage app is obtained from: https://github.com/nxp-imx-support/imx_sec_apps.git: Branch master

With a few adaptations to make it run (e.g. nvm_daemon is started via init scripts in our case), and build using the sdk generated by our yocto build.

Did a small test using a file containing a short text string ("Alle appels zijn oranje"), encrypted on host and imported the aes key from the key_import example on target (0x3FFFFFFF).

./ele_aes_usage decrypt CBC another-cipher.txt another-secret-message.txt 0x3FFFFFFF

The result was: 

Alle appels zijn oranje;m^▒▒▒F▒▒▒}▒ϸ▒▒

Then tested using a 50MB binary (encrypted on host).

./ele_aes_usage decrypt CTR /tmp/binary.bin.enc /tmp/binary.bin 0x3FFFFFFF > /dev/null
[ 1179.264527] fsl-se-fw se-fw2: hsm1_ch0: Not enough space in shared memory
[ 1179.271346] fsl-se-fw se-fw2: hsm1_ch0: Not enough space in shared memory
cipher_with_ele_cipher failed ret:0xff

Then tested encrypting the binary.bin on target (to rule out something wrong with the encryption on host)

./ele_aes_usage encrypt CTR /tmp/binary.bin /tmp/binary.bin.enc 0x3FFFFFFF
Hello, World! Oct 13 2025:06:28:33 b83e779
message preview:
hsqs

SAB Error: SAB C[ 1573.976753] fsl-se-fw se-fw2: hsm1_ch0: Not enough space in shared memory
MD [0x30] Resp [[ 1573.983856] fsl-se-fw se-fw2: hsm1_ch0: Not enough space in shared memory
0xf29] - The key store is already opened by a user (load operation).

Key store already created, trying to load it...

SAB Error: SAB CMD [0x62] Resp [0x29] - General Error.

hsm cipher failed, ret: 0xff
cipher_with_ele_cipher failed ret:0xff

Best Regards,

Hugo