Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030640AbWJJXcS (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:32:18 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1030351AbWJJXcS (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:32:18 -0400 Received: from boogie.lpds.sztaki.hu ([193.224.70.237]:33424 "EHLO boogie.lpds.sztaki.hu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030680AbWJJXcQ (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:32:16 -0400 Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:32:14 +0200 From: Gabor Gombas To: Paul Wouters Cc: fedora-xen@redhat.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: more random device badness in 2.6.18 :( Message-ID: <20061010233214.GA20863@boogie.lpds.sztaki.hu> References: <20061010205051.GB14865@boogie.lpds.sztaki.hu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Copyright: Forwarding or publishing without permission is prohibited. Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1914 Lines: 46 On Tue, Oct 10, 2006 at 11:03:58PM +0200, Paul Wouters wrote: > Why is this happening in userland? Because whether the provided data is "random enough" is a policy decision, and policy does not belong in the kernel. > Will rng-tools run on every bare Linux > system now? Including embedded systems? Why not? Alternatively you can always create your own version. Open source does not mean you get everything for free; it means you _can_ do the work if you want to. > How about xen guests who don't have > direct access to the host's hardware (or software) random? If they don't have access to the host's hardware, then they do not have a /dev/hw_random device. What's your question? And how that's different from machines not having a hw rng at all? > Why is this entropy management not part of the kernel? So for Openswan to > work correctly, it would need to depend on another daemon that may or may > not be available and/or running? No. It only has to depend on /dev/(u)random. How the entropy is obtained (from /dev/hw_random, from the soundcard's white noise or from elsewhere) is none of Openswan's business. Tha'ts up to the system administrator or distribution maker to decide and set up. > I still believe /dev/random should just give the best random possible for > the machine. Wether that is software random, or a piece of hardware, should > not matter. That's the kernel's internal state and functioning. Gabor -- --------------------------------------------------------- MTA SZTAKI Computer and Automation Research Institute Hungarian Academy of Sciences --------------------------------------------------------- - 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/