Chelsio Terminator 6 (T6) crypto offload co-processor
The crypto acceleration block built into Chelsio's Terminator 6 (T6) family of high-end converged Ethernet adapters, used in datacenter and HPC servers to offload bulk symmetric cryptography for IPsec, TLS, and SMB workloads. The T6 generation has been on the market since the late 2010s and Chelsio was still actively marketing it in 2025.
recommendation
Worth keeping but flagging as a narrow-use driver, because the hardware is niche datacenter offload gear rather than something most Linux installs encounter. The code is clearly still maintained — Chelsio sent cleanup patches in 2021 and the file received a substantive AES library API conversion in early 2026 — and Chelsio is still selling T6 adapters as of 2025, so there is no replacement to point users at. The "no removal discussion" finding is a weak inference (a lore search timed out), so the keep verdict rests primarily on the visible upstream activity and continued vendor presence.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
`drivers/crypto/chelsio/chcr_algo.c` received a substantive upstream update on 2026-01-12 ('crypto: chelsio - Use new AES library API'), so the driver is not abandoned.
- lore.kernel.org
Chelsio itself sent maintenance patches for this driver ('chelsio/chcr: Remove useless MODULE_VERSION'), indicating vendor ownership existed upstream.
- chelsio.com
Chelsio's press room lists multiple T6 announcements in 2025, showing T6 adapters were still actively marketed in 2025.
- chelsio.com
Chelsio's Terminator 6 ASIC page describes T6 as providing crypto offload, matching this driver's hardware role.
- chelsio.com
Chelsio documents T6 'co-processor' crypto offload for IPsec/SMB use cases, directly corresponding to the Linux `chcr` driver's purpose.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local source inspection (`rg`, `sed`) shows this is a real module driver (`module_init`) and Kconfig says 'Chelsio Crypto Co-processor Driver' for T6 adapters, dependent on `CHELSIO_T4`. `lore_file_timeline` on `chcr_algo.c` showed active 2026 API-fix traffic; `lore_file_timeline` on `chcr_core.c` showed less recent churn. A directory-level lore timeline returned no matches, and a lore removal-subject regex timed out; therefore 'no active removal discussion' is only a weak inference from available lore, not a proven negative. Web search found Chelsio product/press pages showing T6 remained marketed in 2024-2025, but this is niche datacenter/HPC offload hardware rather than broad commodity deployment. Result: keep the driver, but annotate it as narrow-use, older-generation accelerator hardware with low contemporary deployment and no obvious in-tree replacement.