openssl/README.ENGINE

  ENGINE
  ======

  With OpenSSL 0.9.6, a new component has been added to support external 
  crypto devices, for example accelerator cards.  The component is called
  ENGINE, and has still a pretty experimental status and almost no
  documentation.  It's designed to be faily easily extensible by the
  calling programs.

  There's currently built-in support for the following crypto devices:

      o CryptoSwift
      o Compaq Atalla
      o nCipher CHIL

  A number of things are still needed and are being worked on:

      o An openssl utility command to handle or at least check available
        engines.
      o A better way of handling the methods that are handled by the
        engines.
      o Documentation!

  What already exists is fairly stable as far as it has been tested, but
  the test base has been a bit small most of the time.


  No external crypto device is chosen unless you say so.  You have actively
  tell the openssl utility commands to use it through a new command line
  switch called "-engine".  And if you want to use the ENGINE library to
  do something similar, you must also explicitely choose an external crypto
  device, or the built-in crypto routines will be used, just as in the
  default OpenSSL distribution.


  PROBLEMS
  ========

  It seems like the ENGINE part doesn't work too well with Cryptoswift on
  Win32.  A quick test done right before the release showed that trying
  "openssl speed -engine cswift" generated errors.  If the DSO gets enabled,
  an attempt is made to write at memory address 0x00000002.