tls-pq-bench/README.md

tls-pq-bench

Reproducible benchmarking harness for comparing TLS 1.3 key exchange configurations:

• Classical: X25519
• Hybrid PQ: X25519MLKEM768 (via rustls + aws_lc_rs)

Primary metrics:

• Handshake latency
• TTLB (Time-to-Last-Byte)

Secondary metrics:

• CPU cycles (perf)
• Memory behavior (optional: Valgrind/Massif)
• Binary size (optional)

This repo is intended as the implementation for the empirical part of the bachelor thesis (following the course thesis methodology).

Non-goals

• Not a general-purpose TLS load tester
• Not a cryptographic audit tool
• Not a middlebox compatibility test suite (can be added later)

Quick start (local dev)

1. Install Rust stable and Linux tooling:
   • perf, tcpdump (optional), jq, python3
2. Build:
   • cargo build --release

Reproducibility notes

All experiments should record:

• commit hash
• rustc version
• CPU model and governor
• kernel version
• rustls and aws-lc-rs versions
• exact CLI parameters and network profile

License

Licensed under either of Apache License, Version 2.0 or MIT license at your option.