From: Theodore Ts'o Subject: Re: [PATCH -v5] random: introduce getrandom(2) system call Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 09:22:25 -0400 Message-ID: <20140725132225.GQ1865@thunk.org> References: <1406212287-9855-1-git-send-email-tytso@mit.edu> <20140724151814.GE32421@khazad-dum.debian.net> <20140724190206.GL6673@thunk.org> <20140724203019.GA20737@khazad-dum.debian.net> <20140724232434.GN6673@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Henrique de Moraes Holschuh , Linux Kernel Developers List , Linux API , linux-crypto-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org To: Andy Lutomirski Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-api-owner-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org List-Id: linux-crypto.vger.kernel.org On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 04:27:36PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote: > > I think that people might do: > > try getrandom(GRND_RANDOM) > fall back to /dev/random > fall back to something intensely stupid > > We want them to at least attempt the fallback from GRND_RANDOM to !GRND_RANDOM. We can't legislate against stupidity. Seriously, the best way to do this is to write a good userspace library and encourage application writers to use it. Regards, - Ted