2020-08-31 14:02:15

by Marco Felsch

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH] hwrng: imx-rngc - add quality to use it as kernel entropy pool

The RM describes the RNGB as follow:
8<----------------------------------------------------------------
The RNGB uses the True Random Number Generator (TRNG) and a
Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) to achieve a true randomness and
cryptographic strength.
8<----------------------------------------------------------------

The RNGB has 3 operation modes: self-test, seed-generation and the final
'random number generation' mode. Before we can retrieve random numbers
from the RNGB we need to generate the seed pool:
8<----------------------------------------------------------------
During the seed generation, the RNGB adds the entropy generated in the
TRNG to the 256-bit XKEY register. The PRNG algorithm executes 20.000
entropy samples from the TRNG to create an initial seed for the random
number generation.
8<----------------------------------------------------------------

The RNGB can generate 2^20 words (1 word == 4 byte) of 'random' data
after the seed pool was initialized. The pool needs to be reseeded if
more words are required. The reseeding is done automatically since
commit 3acd9ea9331c ("hwrng: imx-rngc - use automatic seeding").

We can't retrieve the TRNG values directly so we need a other way to get
the quality level. We know that the PRNG uses 20.000 entropy samples
from the TRNG to generate 2^20 words (1MiB) and the quality level is
defined as (in bits of entropy per 1024 bits of input). So the quality
level can be calculated by:

20.000 * 1024
------------- = ~ 19.5
2^20

Signed-off-by: Marco Felsch <[email protected]>
---
drivers/char/hw_random/imx-rngc.c | 1 +
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/drivers/char/hw_random/imx-rngc.c b/drivers/char/hw_random/imx-rngc.c
index 9c47e431ce90..61c844baf26e 100644
--- a/drivers/char/hw_random/imx-rngc.c
+++ b/drivers/char/hw_random/imx-rngc.c
@@ -285,6 +285,7 @@ static int imx_rngc_probe(struct platform_device *pdev)
rngc->rng.init = imx_rngc_init;
rngc->rng.read = imx_rngc_read;
rngc->rng.cleanup = imx_rngc_cleanup;
+ rngc->rng.quality = 19;

rngc->dev = &pdev->dev;
platform_set_drvdata(pdev, rngc);
--
2.20.1


2020-09-11 06:58:49

by Herbert Xu

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] hwrng: imx-rngc - add quality to use it as kernel entropy pool

On Mon, Aug 31, 2020 at 04:00:42PM +0200, Marco Felsch wrote:
> The RM describes the RNGB as follow:
> 8<----------------------------------------------------------------
> The RNGB uses the True Random Number Generator (TRNG) and a
> Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG) to achieve a true randomness and
> cryptographic strength.
> 8<----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The RNGB has 3 operation modes: self-test, seed-generation and the final
> 'random number generation' mode. Before we can retrieve random numbers
> from the RNGB we need to generate the seed pool:
> 8<----------------------------------------------------------------
> During the seed generation, the RNGB adds the entropy generated in the
> TRNG to the 256-bit XKEY register. The PRNG algorithm executes 20.000
> entropy samples from the TRNG to create an initial seed for the random
> number generation.
> 8<----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The RNGB can generate 2^20 words (1 word == 4 byte) of 'random' data
> after the seed pool was initialized. The pool needs to be reseeded if
> more words are required. The reseeding is done automatically since
> commit 3acd9ea9331c ("hwrng: imx-rngc - use automatic seeding").
>
> We can't retrieve the TRNG values directly so we need a other way to get
> the quality level. We know that the PRNG uses 20.000 entropy samples
> from the TRNG to generate 2^20 words (1MiB) and the quality level is
> defined as (in bits of entropy per 1024 bits of input). So the quality
> level can be calculated by:
>
> 20.000 * 1024
> ------------- = ~ 19.5
> 2^20
>
> Signed-off-by: Marco Felsch <[email protected]>
> ---
> drivers/char/hw_random/imx-rngc.c | 1 +
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

Patch applied. Thanks.
--
Email: Herbert Xu <[email protected]>
Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/
PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt