From: Steve Grubb Subject: Re: [PATCH] random: add blocking facility to urandom Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 17:43:16 -0400 Message-ID: <201109071743.16811.sgrubb@redhat.com> References: <1314974248-1511-1-git-send-email-jarod@redhat.com> <1315429827.3576.61.camel@lappy> <4E67E396.702@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Sasha Levin , "Ted Ts'o" , linux-crypto@vger.kernel.org, Matt Mackall , Neil Horman , Herbert Xu , Stephan Mueller , lkml To: Jarod Wilson Return-path: Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:23530 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757167Ab1IGVng (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Sep 2011 17:43:36 -0400 In-Reply-To: <4E67E396.702@redhat.com> Sender: linux-crypto-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wednesday, September 07, 2011 05:35:18 PM Jarod Wilson wrote: > Another proposal that has been kicked around: a 3rd random chardev, > which implements this functionality, leaving urandom unscathed. Some > udev magic or a driver param could move/disable/whatever urandom and put > this alternate device in its place. Ultimately, identical behavior, but > the true urandom doesn't get altered at all. Right, and that's what I was trying to say is that if we do all that and switch out urandom with something new that does what we need, what's the difference in just patching the behavior into urandom and calling it a day? Its simpler, less fragile, admins won't make mistakes setting up the wrong one in a chroot, already has the FIPS-140 dressing, and is auditable. -Steve