Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 19 Aug 2002 06:22:14 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 19 Aug 2002 06:22:14 -0400 Received: from mailout11.sul.t-online.com ([194.25.134.85]:27872 "EHLO mailout11.sul.t-online.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id convert rfc822-to-8bit; Mon, 19 Aug 2002 06:22:13 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Oliver Neukum To: Marco Colombo , "Theodore Ts'o" Subject: Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 12:25:22 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.4.1 Cc: Oliver Xymoron , Robert Love , linux-kernel References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Message-Id: <200208191225.22517.oliver@neukum.name> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1257 Lines: 31 Am Montag, 19. August 2002 12:15 schrieb Marco Colombo: > On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > > [...] > > > P.S. /dev/urandom should probably also be changed to use an entirely > > separate pool, which then periodically pulls a small amount of entropy > > from the priamry pool as necessary. That would make /dev/urandom > > slightly more dependent on the strength of SHA, while causing it to > > not draw down as heavily on the entropy stored in /dev/random, which > > would be a good thing. > > Shouldn't it be moved to userpace, instead? Pulling a small amount > of entropy from /dev/random can be done in userspace, too. And the 1. You create a problem for in kernel users of random numbers. 2. You forgo the benefit of randomness by concurrent access to /dev/urandom 3. You will not benefit from hardware random number generators as easily. > application could choose *how often* and *how many* bits to pull. If you really care, you can implement this for /dev/urandom, too. Regards Oliver - 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/