Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 08 Apr 2001 19:33:39 -0400 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: Sources of entropy - /dev/random problem for network servers |
| |
Alex Bligh - linux-kernel wrote: > The machine in question is locked in a data center (can't be > the only one) and thus sees none of the former two. IDE Entropy > comes from executed IDE commands. The disk is physically largely > inactive due to caching. But there's plenty of network traffic > which should generate IRQs.
Use a hardware random number generator if you need a lot of entropy. The i810 RNG driver and userspace tools at http://sourceforge.net/project/gkernel/ provide an example for an implementation, if your hardware is not i8xx.
> However, only 3 drivers in drivers/net actually set > SA_SAMPLE_RANDOM when calling request_irq(). I believe > all of them should.
No, because an attacker can potentially control input and make it non-random.
Jeff
-- Jeff Garzik | Sam: "Mind if I drive?" Building 1024 | Max: "Not if you don't mind me clawing at the dash MandrakeSoft | and shrieking like a cheerleader." - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |