Messages in this thread |  | | From | Oliver Neukum <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes | Date | Mon, 19 Aug 2002 12:25:22 +0200 |
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Am Montag, 19. August 2002 12:15 schrieb Marco Colombo: > On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > > [...] > > > P.S. /dev/urandom should probably also be changed to use an entirely > > separate pool, which then periodically pulls a small amount of entropy > > from the priamry pool as necessary. That would make /dev/urandom > > slightly more dependent on the strength of SHA, while causing it to > > not draw down as heavily on the entropy stored in /dev/random, which > > would be a good thing. > > Shouldn't it be moved to userpace, instead? Pulling a small amount > of entropy from /dev/random can be done in userspace, too. And the
1. You create a problem for in kernel users of random numbers. 2. You forgo the benefit of randomness by concurrent access to /dev/urandom 3. You will not benefit from hardware random number generators as easily.
> application could choose *how often* and *how many* bits to pull.
If you really care, you can implement this for /dev/urandom, too.
Regards Oliver
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