Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760427AbZDFWUr (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:20:47 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1760220AbZDFWUO (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:20:14 -0400 Received: from mail.sdinet.de ([78.47.32.153]:58108 "EHLO mail.sdinet.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1760361AbZDFWUM (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Apr 2009 18:20:12 -0400 X-Greylist: delayed 603 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:20:11 EDT Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 00:09:31 +0200 (CEST) From: Sven-Haegar Koch To: Matt Mackall cc: Robin Getz , netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Chris Peterson Subject: Re: IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM question... In-Reply-To: <1239044483.14392.55.camel@calx> Message-ID: References: <200904061430.26276.rgetz@blackfin.uclinux.org> <1239044483.14392.55.camel@calx> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (DEB 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1489 Lines: 33 On Mon, 6 Apr 2009, Matt Mackall wrote: > On Mon, 2009-04-06 at 14:30 -0400, Robin Getz wrote: > > 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. Btw, perhaps not the perfect question in this thread: But what should we use to keep servers running without a hardware rng available and without any external input besides the network? After having ssh and openvpn die because of no random and having the machines like dead and unreachable for me I use "ln -sf /dev/urandom /dev/random", but that does not feel so good. c'ya sven -- The lights are fading out, once more... -- 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/