It's worth it. And yes, I have done that, it's not a mystery, they all provide a API/ABI for interacting with them[1], such as OpenSSL's Engine API or PCKS#11.

It's worth it. And yes, I have done that, it's not a mystery, they all provide a API/ABI for interacting with them[1], such as OpenSSL's Engine API or PCKS#11. Edit: There's even a project to literally do this directly from PHP[3] [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10796485/interfacing-with-a-hardware-security-module-on-linux http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10796485/interfacing-with... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKCS_11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKCS_11 [3] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3231293/how-to-interface-with-pkcs11-compliant-hsm-device-in-php http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3231293/how-to-interface-...