From: Hannes Frederic Sowa Subject: Re: [PATCH, RFC] random: introduce getrandom(2) system call Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 11:47:15 +0200 Message-ID: <1406108835.2603.144733749.2407B407@webmail.messagingengine.com> References: <20140721112102.19300.qmail@ns.horizon.com> <1405956426.2319.37.camel@localhost> <1405990940.28229.4.camel@localhost> <20140722044409.GE24960@thunk.org> <1406022592.2407.9.camel@localhost> <20140722225950.GU25291@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: George Spelvin , linux-crypto@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org To: "Theodore Ts'o" Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20140722225950.GU25291@thunk.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-crypto.vger.kernel.org Hi, On Wed, Jul 23, 2014, at 00:59, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > But why would you need to use GRND_RANDOM in your scenario, and accept > your application potentially getting stalled and stuck in amber for > perhaps hours? If you are going to accept your application stalling > like that, you can do the pointer arithmatic. It's really not hard, > and someone who can't do that, again, shouldn't be allowd anywhere > near crypto code in the first place (and if they are, they'll probably > be making lots of other, equally fatal if not more so, newbie > mistakes). I favored the idea of having a non-failing non-partial-read getrandom syscall. But I am with you if it often causes long stalls that we should stick to the old semantics. Thanks, Hannes