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For SHA-256, we currently have support for OpenSSL and libgcrypt because
these two libraries contain optimized implementations that can take
advantage of native processor instructions. However, OpenSSL is not
suitable for linking against for Linux distros due to licensing
incompatibilities with the GPLv2, and libgcrypt has been less favored by
cryptographers due to some security-related implementation issues,
which, while not affecting our use of hash algorithms, has affected its
reputation.
Let's add another option that's compatible with the GPLv2, which is
Nettle. This is an option which is generally better than libgcrypt
because on many distros GnuTLS (which uses Nettle) is used for HTTPS and
therefore as a practical matter it will be available on most systems.
As a result, prefer it over libgcrypt and our built-in implementation.
Nettle also has recently gained support for Intel's SHA-NI instructions,
which compare very favorably to other implementations, as well as
assembly implementations for when SHA-NI is not available.
A git gc on git.git sees a 12% performance improvement with Nettle over
our block SHA-256 implementation due to general assembly improvements.
With SHA-NI, the performance of raw SHA-256 on a 2 GiB file goes from
7.296 seconds with block SHA-256 to 1.523 seconds with Nettle.
Signed-off-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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