Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM question... | From | Matt Mackall <> | Date | Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:01:23 -0700 |
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On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 14:30 -0400, Robin Getz wrote: > Although there was some discussion > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/680723 > > about removing IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM from the remaining network drivers in May of > 2008, but they still appears to be there in 2.6.29. > > drivers/net/ibmlana.c > drivers/net/macb.c > drivers/net/3c523.c > drivers/net/3c527.c > drivers/net/netxen/netxen_nic_main.c > drivers/net/cris/eth_v10.c > drivers/net/xen-netfront.c > drivers/net/atlx/atl1.c > drivers/net/qla3xxx.c > drivers/net/tg3.c > drivers/net/niu.c > > So what is the plan? If I send a patch to add IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM to others > (like the Blackfin) networking drivers - will it get rejected? > > We have lots of embedded headless systems (no keyboard/mouse, no soundcard, no > video) systems with *no* sources of entropy - and people using SSL.
I'd rather add a random_sample_network call somewhere reasonably central in the network stack. Then we can use the knowledge that the sample is network-connected in the random core to decide how to measure its entropy. The trouble with IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM is that many of its users are technically bogus as entropy sources in the current model.
I'm eventually going to move the RNG away from the strict theoretical entropy accounting model to a more pragmatic one which will be much happier with iffy entropy sources, but that's a ways off.
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