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Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 15:36:26 -0500
From: Jeff Garzik <garzik@havoc.gtf.org>
To: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Peter Monta <pmonta@pmonta.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Continuing /dev/random problems with 2.4
Message-ID: <20020201153626.C2497@havoc.gtf.org>
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In-Reply-To: <3C5AFA22.1020208@zytor.com>; from hpa@zytor.com on Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 12:27:14PM -0800
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On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 12:27:14PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Peter Monta wrote:
> 
> >>Anything that is meant to be a server really pretty much needs an
> >>enthropy generator these days.
> >>
> > 
> > Many motherboards have on-board sound.  Why not turn the mic
> > gain all the way up and use the noise---surely there will be
> > a few bits' worth?
> > 
> > Perhaps there ought to be a way to give bits to the kernel's
> > /dev/random input hopper from user space.
> > 
> 
> 
> There already is.  If I'm not completely mistaken, just write the raw data
> to /dev/random, then there is an ioctl() saying "add N bits to the
> entrophy counter."

Yep.  The i810 RNG userspace daemon, rngd, does this.  It reads from
i810 RNG data from /dev/intel_rng, tests the data, and injects it back
into /dev/random with the specified entropy bits.  (zero bits by default,
because we default to paranoia mode of not trusting, but that can and is
usually increased)

	Jeff



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