From:   Stephan Mueller <smueller@chronox.de>
To:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc:     Simo Sorce <simo@redhat.com>,
        "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>, Tso Ted <tytso@mit.edu>,
        linux-crypto@vger.kernel.org, Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>,
        Nicolai Stange <nstange@suse.de>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
        "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>,
        "Alexander E. Patrakov" <patrakov@gmail.com>,
        "Ahmed S. Darwish" <darwish.07@gmail.com>,
        Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org>,
        Vito Caputo <vcaputo@pengaru.com>,
        Andreas Dilger <adilger.kernel@dilger.ca>,
        Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>, Ray Strode <rstrode@redhat.com>,
        William Jon McCann <mccann@jhu.edu>,
        zhangjs <zachary@baishancloud.com>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>,
        Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com>,
        Lennart Poettering <mzxreary@0pointer.de>,
        Peter Matthias <matthias.peter@bsi.bund.de>,
        Marcelo Henrique Cerri <marcelo.cerri@canonical.com>,
        Neil Horman <nhorman@redhat.com>,
        Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>,
        Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@inria.fr>,
        Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>,
        Andy Lavr <andy.lavr@gmail.com>,
        Eric Biggers <ebiggers@kernel.org>,
        Petr Tesarik <ptesarik@suse.cz>,
        John Haxby <john.haxby@oracle.com>,
        Alexander Lobakin <alobakin@mailbox.org>,
        Jirka Hladky <jhladky@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v43 01/15] Linux Random Number Generator
Date:   Mon, 29 Nov 2021 16:31:59 +0100
Message-ID: <9311513.S0ZZtNTvxh@tauon.chronox.de>
In-Reply-To: <YaEJtv4A6SoDFYjc@kroah.com>
References: <2036923.9o76ZdvQCi@positron.chronox.de> <22137816.pfsBpAd9cS@tauon.chronox.de> <YaEJtv4A6SoDFYjc@kroah.com>
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Am Freitag, 26. November 2021, 17:22:14 CET schrieb Greg Kroah-Hartman:

Hi Greg,

> On Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 05:15:59PM +0100, Stephan Mueller wrote:
> > Am Freitag, 26. November 2021, 16:44:17 CET schrieb Greg Kroah-Hartman:
> > 
> > Hi Greg,
> > 
> > > On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 09:59:01AM -0500, Simo Sorce wrote:
> > > > Jason,
> > > > have you previously produced a list of reasoned concerns with this
> > > > patchset and direction?
> > > > 
> > > > This specific email is not really useful to me to understand the
> > > > concerns as it does not contain actionable suggestion or critique.
> > > > 
> > > > I personally find the direction fine, and with my distribution hat on
> > > > I
> > > > can say that FIPS is essential for us and any design must include an
> > > > option to be FIPS certifiable.
> > > > 
> > > > As NIST keeps improving their testing capabilities and rigorous
> > > > cryptographic design of the CSPRNGs as well as entropy sources the
> > > > kernel must also adapt.
> > > > 
> > > > Stephan is providing a path forward, and I haven't seen any other
> > > > proposal, let alone code, that provide improvements in this area.
> > > > I am pretty sure the design can be improved if there is detailed and
> > > > actionable feedback on what to change.
> > > > 
> > > > I hope the path forward can be one of collaboration rather then mere
> > > > opposition.
> > > 
> > > Replacement of the existing code to cut over to the new one is not
> > > collaboration, it's the exact opposite.
> > > 
> > > Submitting patches to the existing codebase to implement the
> > > "requirements" is the proper way forward, why has that never been done.
> > 
> > It has been attempted by Nikolai Stange without avail - no comments were
> > received, let alone it was integrated.
> 
> Links to the patches and discussion please?

Please consider https://lkml.org/lkml/2020/9/21/157

One side note: the LRNG patch set does not replace random.c, but provides an 
additional implementation that can be selected at compile time. I am under the 
impression that is an equal approach considering other areas of the kernel 
like file systems, memory allocators, and similar.

Thanks
Stephan