Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 17 Aug 2002 20:25:55 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes |
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Hmm.. After more reading, it looks like (if I understood correctly), that since network activity isn't considered trusted -at-all-, your average router / firewall / xxx box will not _ever_ get any output from /dev/random what-so-ever. Quite regardless of the context switch issue, since that only triggers for trusted sources. So it was even more draconian than I expected.
Are you seriously trying to say that a TSC running at a gigahertz cannot be considered to contain any random information just because you think you can time the network activity so well from the outside?
Oliver, I really think this patch (which otherwise looks perfectly fine) is just unrealistic. There are _real_ reasons why a firewall box (ie one that probably comes with a flash memory disk, and runs a small web-server for configuration) would want to have strong random numbers (exactly for things like generating host keys when asked to by the sysadmin), yet you seem to say that such a user would have to use /dev/urandom.
If I read the patch correctly, you give such a box _zero_ "trusted" sources of randomness, and thus zero bits of information in /dev/random. It obviously won't have a keyboard or anything like that.
This is ludicrous.
Linus
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