Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 17 Aug 2002 23:01:12 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 17 Aug 2002 23:01:12 -0400 Received: from neon-gw-l3.transmeta.com ([63.209.4.196]:13324 "EHLO neon-gw.transmeta.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 17 Aug 2002 23:01:12 -0400 Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 20:08:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Oliver Xymoron cc: linux-kernel Subject: Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes In-Reply-To: <20020818025913.GF21643@waste.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1253 Lines: 30 On Sat, 17 Aug 2002, Oliver Xymoron wrote: > > Let me clarify that 2-5 orders thing. The kernel trusts about 10 times > as many samples as it should, and overestimates each samples' entropy > by about a factor of 10 (on x86 with TSC) or 1.3 (using 1kHz jiffies). Lookin gat the code, your _new_ code just throws samples away _entirely_ just because some random event hasn't happened (the first thing I noticed was the context switch testing, there may be others there that I just didn't react to). In short, you seem to cut those random events to _zero_. And this happens under what seems to be perfectly realistic loads. That's not trying to fix things, that's just breaking them. > The patches will be a nuisance for anyone who's currently using > /dev/random to generate session keys on busy SSL servers. No, it appears to be a nuisanse even for people who have real issues, ie just generating _occasional_ numbers on machines that just don't happen to run much user space programs. Linus - 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/