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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | REPORTING BUGS | SEE ALSO | CRYPTSETUP |
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CRYPTSETUP-BENCHMARK(8) Maintenance Commands CRYPTSETUP-BENCHMARK(8)
cryptsetup-benchmark - benchmarks ciphers and KDF
cryptsetup benchmark [<options>]
Benchmarks, ciphers and KDF (key derivation function). Without
parameters, it tries to measure a few common configurations.
To benchmark other ciphers or modes, specify --cipher and
--key-size options.
To benchmark PBKDF you need to specify --pbkdf or --hash with
optional cost parameters --iter-time, --pbkdf-memory or
--pbkdf-parallel.
This benchmark uses memory only and is only informative. You
cannot directly predict real storage encryption speed from it.
For testing block ciphers, this benchmark requires the kernel
userspace crypto API to be available. If you are configuring the
kernel yourself, enable "User-space interface for symmetric key
cipher algorithms" in "Cryptographic API" section
(CRYPTO_USER_API_SKCIPHER .config option).
<options> can be [--cipher, --key-size, --hash, --pbkdf,
--iter-time, --pbkdf-memory, --pbkdf-parallel].
--batch-mode, -q
Suppresses all confirmation questions. Use with care!
If the --verify-passphrase option is not specified, this
option also switches off the passphrase verification.
--cipher, -c <cipher-spec>
Set the cipher specification string.
--debug or --debug-json
Run in debug mode with full diagnostic logs. Debug output
lines are always prefixed by #.
If --debug-json is used, additional LUKS2 JSON data structures
are printed.
--hash, -h <hash-spec>
The specified hash is used for PBKDF2 and the AF splitter.
--help, -?
Show help text and default parameters.
--iter-time, -i <number of milliseconds>
The number of milliseconds to spend with PBKDF passphrase
processing. Specifying 0 as a parameter selects the
compiled-in default.
--key-size, -s bits
Sets key size in bits. The argument has to be a multiple of 8.
The possible key sizes are limited by the cipher and mode
used.
See /proc/crypto for more information. Note that the key size
in /proc/crypto is stated in bytes.
This option can be used for open --type plain or luksFormat.
All other LUKS actions will use the key size specified in the
LUKS header. Use cryptsetup --help to show the compiled-in
defaults.
--pbkdf <PBKDF spec>
Set Password-Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF) algorithm
for LUKS keyslot. The PBKDF can be: pbkdf2 (for PBKDF2
according to RFC2898), argon2i for Argon2i or argon2id for
Argon2id (see Argon2
<https://www.cryptolux.org/index.php/Argon2> for more info).
For LUKS1, only PBKDF2 is accepted (no need to use this
option). The default PBKDF for LUKS2 is set during compilation
time and is available in the cryptsetup --help output.
A PBKDF is used for increasing the dictionary and brute-force
attack cost for keyslot passwords. The parameters can be time,
memory and parallel cost.
For PBKDF2, only the time cost (number of iterations) applies.
For Argon2i/id, there is also memory cost (memory required
during the process of key derivation) and parallel cost
(number of threads that run in parallel during the key
derivation.
Note that increasing memory cost also increases time, so the
final parameter values are measured by a benchmark. The
benchmark tries to find iteration time (--iter-time) with
required memory cost --pbkdf-memory. If it is not possible,
the memory cost is decreased as well. The parallel cost
--pbkdf-parallel is constant and is checked against available
CPU cores.
You can see all PBKDF parameters for a particular LUKS2
keyslot with the cryptsetup-luksDump(8) command.
If you do not want to use benchmark and want to specify all
parameters directly, use --pbkdf-force-iterations with
--pbkdf-memory and --pbkdf-parallel. This will override the
values without benchmarking. Note it can cause extremely long
unlocking time or cause out-of-memory conditions with
unconditional process termination. Use only in specific cases,
for example, if you know that the formatted device will be
used on some small embedded system.
MINIMAL AND MAXIMAL PBKDF COSTS: For PBKDF2, the minimum
iteration count is 1000 and the maximum is 4294967295 (maximum
for 32-bit unsigned integer). Memory and parallel costs are
not supported for PBKDF2. For Argon2i and Argon2id, the
minimum iteration count (CPU cost) is 4, and the maximum is
4294967295 (maximum for a 32-bit unsigned integer). Minimum
memory cost is 32 KiB and maximum is 4 GiB. If the memory cost
parameter is benchmarked (not specified by a parameter), it is
always in the range from 64 MiB to 1 GiB. Memory cost above
1GiB (up to the 4GiB maximum) can be setup only by the
--pbkdf-memory parameter. The parallel cost minimum is 1 and
maximum 4 (if enough CPU cores are available, otherwise it is
decreased by the available CPU cores).
WARNING: Increasing PBKDF computational costs above the
mentioned limits provides negligible additional security
improvement. While elevated costs significantly increase
brute-force overhead, they offer negligible protection against
dictionary attacks. The marginal cost increase for processing
an entire dictionary remains fundamentally insufficient.
The hardcoded PBKDF limits represent engineered trade-offs
between cryptographic security and operational usability. LUKS
maintains portability and must be used within a reasonable
time on resource-constrained systems.
Cryptsetup deliberately restricts maximum memory cost (4 GiB)
and parallel cost (4) parameters due to architectural
limitations (like embedded and legacy systems).
PBKDF memory cost mandates actual physical RAM allocation with
intensive write operations that must remain in physical RAM.
Any swap usage results in unacceptable performance
degradation. Memory management often overcommits allocations
beyond available physical memory, expecting most allocated
memory to remain unused. In such situations, as PBKDF always
uses all allocated memory, it frequently causes out-of-memory
failures that abort cryptsetup operations.
--pbkdf-memory number
Set the memory cost for PBKDF (for Argon2i/id, the number
represents kilobytes). Note that it is the maximal value;
PBKDF benchmark or available physical memory can decrease it.
This option is not available for PBKDF2.
--pbkdf-parallel number
Set the parallel cost for PBKDF (number of threads, up to 4).
Note that it is the maximal value; it is decreased
automatically if the CPU online count is lower. This option is
not available for PBKDF2.
--usage
Show short option help.
--version, -V
Show the program version.
Report bugs at cryptsetup mailing list
<cryptsetup@lists.linux.dev> or in Issues project section
<https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup/-/issues/new>.
Please attach the output of the failed command with --debug option
added.
Cryptsetup FAQ
<https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup/wikis/FrequentlyAskedQuestions>
cryptsetup(8), integritysetup(8) and veritysetup(8)
Part of cryptsetup project
<https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup/>. This page is part of
the Cryptsetup ((open-source disk encryption)) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup⟩. If you have a bug
report for this manual page, send it to dm-crypt@saout.de. This
page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://gitlab.com/cryptsetup/cryptsetup.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2025-08-01.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
cryptsetup 2.8.1-git 2025-08-09 CRYPTSETUP-BENCHMARK(8)
Pages that refer to this page: cryptsetup(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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