EFJ VP Encryption

[otobmark]

Switching to Vp8000 for my personal radio and while I’m waiting for it to arrive I’ve been trying to come up to speed on it. Many questions I may ask would probably be easy for me to figure out if I had the radio in hand to experiment with so I’m not asking anyone to expend real effort to help me at this point.
Up to now I’ve mostly avoided encryption due to being Emergency Management focused where encryption is rare but things are changing. My immediate future will be a mix of ADP & AES256 mostly on 2 TRS‘ and all have to be KVL loaded to preserve key management structure. My previous limited experience is Motorola. Working from memory, I had to enter the ckr’s via cps into the radio multikey table for the kvl to be able to load in matching keys (CKR in kvl = CKR in radio multikey table). If CKR number wasn’t in multikey table then key would not be loaded (again stating my recollection not fact). PLEASE CORRECT ME.
In Armada there is added layer of PID, which I apparently must manually index to SLN/CKR numbers. My APX radios have 128 “physical” registers but instead of fixed PID’s labels of 1-128 they are labeled only with CKR ID numbers—no matching required.
So, do I have to build mapping table with PID’s matched to SLN’s BEFORE shooting with KVL? Will only CKR/SLN’s in the radio key table be loaded? Also, after keys are loaded can I rearrange PID/SLN match?
We have Kenwood and efj radios on statewide system but I have yet to meet any fluent Armada programmers. They rely on factory system key to do the heavy lifting for setup. In the near future I may be one of the few understanding Armada (assuming I can actually learn it). Next county over have 90 new EFJ radios and their radio techs are struggling with finer details but loving radios so far.
My next question series will button and menu functions...

 

[kd4efm]

as I have been working with some vp6000 radios, the PID is the CKR# so the number needs to match the kvl entry.
There is no 0 in some motorola models!




ARMADA (note: this shows the PID in slot Zero, it should be in PID 1)
*Working with a customer who had trouble with ADP not working,

 

[otobmark]

LID is asn key version of KID which is what receiving radio uses to identify which key the receiving radio needs to use to decode.
Your version of astro cps shows a line number which my cps doesn't have, but I bet it cannot be edited. That line number is never referenced anywhere in the cps that I can find.
As far as making CKR's to same value as PID I cannot do that in that our CKR's are mostly above 126. We would have to map CKR 2110 to one of the 1-126 PID's (which cannot be edited to another number). Apparently TX radio channel uses PID to select which key to encode outgoing traffic with.

When selecting a key in astro to use with a channel the drop down menu uses Key Alias name which clues me into selecting the right key. In Armada the drop down for selecting Key is PID number. I would have to keep a list of PID to SLN handy to make sure I get right key.
Receiving radio uses LID or KID to select decryption key.

My main question is how to set up radio for keyloading by KVL. Do I have to create the PID to CKR/SLN mapping table before using KVL?

 

[rowanRF]

The PID (ASN) mode shown by kd4efm is only supported for the older 600 and 900 portables and mobiles. On the newer 5/6/7/8000 radios you have to use SLN mode to work with a KVL. At that point you can add whatever keys you want with the KVL, but to actually assign keys to various things, you have to fill out the 'Keys Table - Hardware' in Armada. There you assign SLNs to one or more PIDs, then those PIDs can be assigned to channels/talkgoups. So to summarize, a channel takes a PID that points to a SLN of a key added by the KVL.

ADP keys can be done a little differently. Something EFJ added in a recent firmware was the ability to load ADP keys with a KVL. If you're doing that, the steps above will be enough to get things working for you. The other option with ADP keys is add them in Armada in 'Keys Table - Software'. If you go that route, then all ADP keys will have to be added that way, but the KVL will still work for AES and DES. If you do add ADP keys in Armada, then the PIDs work pretty much the same as before. A channel takes a PID that points to a KID added in Armada.

Something you have to be clear on is that the PID value is only important to the radio itself - it means nothing when compared to other manufacturers' radios. It's how EFJ radios lookup which key they're going to use. The KID is what gets sent OTA for decryption, so the only requirement is that that the PID is pointing to the key with the KID you want to talk with.

As for your main question, the PID to SLN table doesn't need to be filled out before using a KVL, but you will need to have the radio configured in SLN mode, which is the default setting. Once keys are added you can modify the table however you like.

 

[otobmark]

I couldn’t kvl load RC4/ADP into my radio. DES and AES loaded correctly. Remembering back to Motorola that you couldn’t combine software keys with hardware keys. I went to the software key list and found a checkbox to activate software keys which was selected. I had not entered any software keys so I had not looked at the list before. When I unchecked the box and reprogrammed the radio the kvl could now load RC4 keys.
I haven’t loaded any software keys so I’m not sure but it seems it is possible to load RC4 as software keys while AES/DES with KVL at same time, you just can’t enter RC4 both ways.