kstuff-lite: What's New

• fpkg handling and related crypto paths were improved. A lot of internal logic was sped up: fewer repeated calculations, fewer repeated memory reads, and faster handling of adjacent data blocks.

• FSELF handling was improved. Parsing and patching now happen more carefully and more efficiently, with extra protection against repeated-access edge cases.

• Startup and early initialization were sped up. Process lookup and internal memory setup were optimized. Some unnecessary allocations and repeated copies were removed.

• Protection against freezes and kernel panics was improved. Critical paths now perform safer validation. If important data cannot be read or written correctly, the code more often tries to stop safely instead of continuing with corrupted state.

• Automatic mounting can now be disabled. This is useful if you want a more controlled startup flow or if you are debugging.

Main changes by subsystem

1. Payload loading and startup

• Memory for loading the module is now allocated automatically in the required size.
• The loader startup path was optimized.
• CR3 preparation and related setup were improved.
• A more compatible ShellCore process lookup path was restored, to avoid trading too much stability for aggressive optimization.
• A prepared zero buffer is now reused instead of clearing memory the slow way each time.

What this improves:

• faster startup;
• fewer unnecessary operations during loading;
• lower chance of hitting unstable behavior during early initialization.

2. fpkg and PFS crypto handling

• Caches were added for crypto state.
• Expanded XTS keys and HMAC-SHA256 state are now cached.
• Virtual-to-physical translation was sped up in crypto paths.
• Adjacent XTS messages can now be processed together.
• A direct DMEM fast path was added for XTS sectors.
• Batched XTS handling for fpkg was optimized.
• A shared slow temporary buffer was removed.
• HMAC-SHA256 was specialized for the fake-key crypto paths that are actually used.

What this improves:

• faster fpkg mounting and processing;
• less redundant crypto work;
• lower overhead in repeated operations.

3. FSELF handling

• A cache was added for already parsed FSELF headers.
• A cache was added for the active SELF context within a single system call.
• Extra validation was added so an old and a new object are not confused if the same address gets reused.
• authinfo loading became lazy: it is only read when it is actually needed.
• SELF block copying became safer: overlapping memory ranges are now handled correctly; no-op copies are skipped; unnecessary reads were reduced.

What this improves:

• faster repeated SELF processing;
• fewer unnecessary kernel memory reads;
• lower risk of corrupting data in complex loading scenarios.

4. NPDRM and license-related handling

• A cache was added for the debug RIF key schedule.
• Internal hashing was moved to a lighter and faster wrapper.
• Extra nested FPU transitions were removed where the FPU was already held.
• The NPDRM handler now deals with errors more carefully and with slightly lower fixed overhead.

What this improves:

• less unnecessary work in license and key-related paths;
• more predictable behavior when something goes wrong.

5. Crypto library and Zen 2 optimization

• libtomcrypt was replaced with a faster minimal path based on isa-l_crypto.
• A custom minimal PS5 adapter for isa-l_crypto was added.
• A dedicated fast SHA-256 path optimized for Zen 2 was added.
• uelf and the crypto-related parts of the build are now better tuned for the PS5 CPU.
• Optimization settings were made safer and more predictable.

What this improves:

• higher speed in real crypto workloads;
• less unnecessary code;
• better fit for actual PS5 hardware.

6. Reliability and error handling

• fsbase offset lookup in kekcall was fixed.
• A case where a fake key could remain half-broken after a partial failure was fixed.
• Checked helpers were added for reading and writing sensitive kernel data.
• Error handling was improved in syscall, trap, mailbox, FSELF, fpkg, and NPDRM paths.
• Debug register save and restore handling was fixed.
• FPU entry failures are now handled explicitly instead of being ignored.

What this improves:

• lower chance of kernel panics caused by corrupted state;
• better behavior in rare failures and edge cases;
• safer debugging.