bench: improve context creation in ECDH benchmark
What the developer wrote
Authored by Sebastian Falbesoner
bench: improve context creation in ECDH benchmark
Calling `secp256k1_context_create` with `SECP256K1_FLAGS_TYPE_CONTEXT`
seems to be not strictly API-compliant, as the only allowed
(non-deprecated) value is `SECP256K1_CONTEXT_NONE`, even if the
former happens to map to the latter currently.
Fix this by not dynamically creating a context in the first place and
switch to using the static context, as it is sufficient for this
benchmark and presumably matches what the "no capabilities" comment
intended back then.
What changed, and why it matters
This is a small cleanup in a benchmark test file for the ECDH module. It replaces a dynamically created cryptographic context with a pre-built static one and removes the matching cleanup call. The change is about making the benchmark follow the intended API more cleanly; it does not fix an exploitable vulnerability in production code.
No security action required. Treat as a normal code-quality / benchmark maintenance patch.
Security signals we found
API compliance cleanup in benchmark code
Removal of non-compliant context creation flag usage
No change to cryptographic operations or validation logic
No change to production library code
Evidence from the diff
The patch modifies src/modules/ecdh/bench_impl.h. It changes the benchmark’s context pointer from mutable (secp256k1_context ) to const (const secp256k1_context ), assigns secp256k1_context_static instead of calling secp256k1_context_create(SECP256K1_FLAGS_TYPE_CONTEXT), and removes the secp256k1_context_destroy() call. The commit message notes that SECP256K1_FLAGS_TYPE_CONTEXT is not strictly API-compliant as a context-creation flag and that the static context is sufficient for benchmarking ECDH. This is a benchmark-only, non-functional change.
Changed components
src/modules/ecdh/bench_impl.hInspect captured patch +2 / −5
diff --git a/src/modules/ecdh/bench_impl.h b/src/modules/ecdh/bench_impl.h
index c23aaa9..8924e1f 100644
--- a/src/modules/ecdh/bench_impl.h
+++ b/src/modules/ecdh/bench_impl.h
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
#include "../../../include/secp256k1_ecdh.h"
typedef struct {
- secp256k1_context *ctx;
+ const secp256k1_context *ctx;
secp256k1_pubkey point;
unsigned char scalar[32];
} bench_ecdh_data;
@@ -46,12 +46,9 @@ static void run_ecdh_bench(int iters, int argc, char** argv) {
bench_ecdh_data data;
int d = argc == 1;
- /* create a context with no capabilities */
- data.ctx = secp256k1_context_create(SECP256K1_FLAGS_TYPE_CONTEXT);
+ data.ctx = secp256k1_context_static;
if (d || have_flag(argc, argv, "ecdh")) run_benchmark("ecdh", bench_ecdh, bench_ecdh_setup, NULL, &data, 10, iters);
-
- secp256k1_context_destroy(data.ctx);
}
#endif /* SECP256K1_MODULE_ECDH_BENCH_H */
Why this scored 17/100
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