From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754124AbXLHUFp (ORCPT ); Sat, 8 Dec 2007 15:05:45 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753563AbXLHUFd (ORCPT ); Sat, 8 Dec 2007 15:05:33 -0500 Received: from srv5.dvmed.net ([207.36.208.214]:42881 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753400AbXLHUFc (ORCPT ); Sat, 8 Dec 2007 15:05:32 -0500 Message-ID: <475AF8D0.1090407@garzik.org> Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:04:32 -0500 From: Jeff Garzik User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (X11/20071115) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Matt Mackall CC: Theodore Tso , Mike McGrath , Jon Masters , Alan Cox , Ray Lee , Adrian Bunk , Marc Haber , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, hmh@debian.org Subject: Re: entropy gathering (was Re: Why does reading from /dev/urandom deplete entropy so much?) References: <4755D350.1080801@redhat.com> <20071204223345.GJ19691@waste.org> <4756B50B.3060100@redhat.com> <20071205144934.GL7259@thunk.org> <1197099477.20786.149.camel@perihelion> <20071208173204.GI17037@thunk.org> <475AD585.7020908@redhat.com> <20071208174908.GJ17037@thunk.org> <20071208181525.GL19691@waste.org> <475AF241.5000809@garzik.org> <20071208195342.GO19691@waste.org> In-Reply-To: <20071208195342.GO19691@waste.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -4.4 (----) X-Spam-Report: SpamAssassin version 3.1.9 on srv5.dvmed.net summary: Content analysis details: (-4.4 points, 5.0 required) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Matt Mackall wrote: > On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 02:36:33PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote: >> As an aside... >> >> Speaking as the maintainer rng-tools, which is the home of the hardware >> RNG entropy gathering daemon... >> >> I wish somebody (not me) would take rngd and several other projects, and >> combine them into a single actively maintained "entropy gathering" package. > > I think we should re-evaluate having an internal path from the hwrngs > to /dev/[u]random, which will reduce the need for userspace config > that can go wrong. That's a bit of a tangent on a tangent. :) Most people don't have a hardware RNG. But as long as there are adequate safeguards against common hardware failures (read: FIPS testing inside the kernel), go for it. Jeff