PVA Authentication

Applies to the Jetson AGX Orin series, Jetson Orin NX series, Jetson Orin Nano series, and Jetson AGX Thor series.

Overview

The Programmable Vision Accelerator (PVA) is a specialized engine to accelerate computer vision and image processing tasks. Specialized software libraries such as VPI utilize the PVA.

When PVA authentication is enabled, only signed application code is allowed to execute on the PVA hardware. The default value of PVA authentication is off; if you want to use this protection, you must explicitly enable it. Software libraries provided by NVIDIA, such as VPI, register signatures with the system when the libraries are installed by using a package manager on the target device.

Troubleshooting

Errors that occur while executing software that uses the PVA engine might be due to the incorrect signature registration when PVA authentication is enabled. To enable authentication protection, a privileged user can run the following command:

$ sudo bash -c 'echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/pva0/vpu_app_authentication'

If you need to run unsigned applications for troubleshooting, a privileged user can temporarily disable the authentication mechanism by running the following command:

$ sudo bash -c 'echo 0 > /sys/kernel/debug/pva0/vpu_app_authentication'