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From: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
To: Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be>
Cc: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>,
	Stephan Mueller <smueller@chronox.de>,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Linux API <linux-api@vger.kernel.org>,
	Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>,
	"Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>,
	"Ahmed S. Darwish" <darwish.07@gmail.com>,
	Lennart Poettering <mzxreary@0pointer.de>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>,
	"Alexander E. Patrakov" <patrakov@gmail.com>,
	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
	Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>, Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org>,
	Ext4 Developers List <linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org>,
	linux-man <linux-man@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 0/8] Rework random blocking
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 14:30:48 -1000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <99CB981B-752C-449B-98BE-A4DF80D25A26@amacapital.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200109220230.GA39185@roeckx.be>



> On Jan 9, 2020, at 12:02 PM, Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be> wrote:
> 

> 
> If the kernel provides a good RNG, the only reason I can see why
> you would like to have direct access to a hwrng is to verify that
> it's working correctly. That might mean that you put it in some
> special mode where it returns raw unprocessed values. If the device
> is in such a mode, it's output will not provide the same entropy
> per bit, and so I would expect the kernel to stop using it directly.

I disagree.

If I buy a ChaosKey or a fancy EAL4FIPSOMG key, I presumably have it for a reason and I want to actually use the thing for real. Maybe it’s for some certification reason and maybe it’s just because it’s really cool.

As for “direct” access,  I think AMD provides an interface to read raw output from the on-die entropy source. Exposing this to user space is potentially quite useful for anyone who wants to try to characterize it.  I don’t really think people should use a raw sample interface as a source of production random numbers, though.

      parent reply	other threads:[~2020-01-10  0:30 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-12-23  8:20 [PATCH v3 0/8] Rework random blocking Andy Lutomirski
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 1/8] random: Don't wake crng_init_wait when crng_init == 1 Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 20:42   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 2/8] random: Add a urandom_read_nowait() for random APIs that don't warn Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 20:43   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 3/8] random: Add GRND_INSECURE to return best-effort non-cryptographic bytes Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 20:44   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 4/8] random: Ignore GRND_RANDOM in getentropy(2) Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 20:44   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 5/8] random: Make /dev/random be almost like /dev/urandom Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 21:02   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 6/8] random: Remove the blocking pool Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 21:03   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 7/8] random: Delete code to pull data into pools Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 21:03   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-23  8:20 ` [PATCH v3 8/8] random: Remove kernel.random.read_wakeup_threshold Andy Lutomirski
2020-01-07 21:04   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-26  9:29 ` [PATCH v3 0/8] Rework random blocking Stephan Müller
2019-12-26 10:03   ` Matthew Garrett
2019-12-26 11:40     ` Stephan Mueller
2019-12-26 11:12   ` Andy Lutomirski
2019-12-26 12:03     ` Stephan Mueller
2019-12-26 12:46       ` Andy Lutomirski
2019-12-27  9:55         ` Stephan Mueller
2019-12-26 14:04       ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-26 23:29         ` Andy Lutomirski
2019-12-27 10:29           ` Stephan Mueller
2019-12-27 13:04             ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-27 21:22               ` Stephan Mueller
2019-12-27 22:08                 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-28  2:06                   ` Andy Lutomirski
2019-12-29 14:49                     ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-12-29 15:08                       ` Andy Lutomirski
2019-12-28  7:01                   ` Willy Tarreau
2020-01-09 22:02                   ` Kurt Roeckx
2020-01-09 22:40                     ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-01-09 23:02                       ` Kurt Roeckx
2020-01-10  7:53                         ` Stephan Mueller
2020-01-10  0:30                     ` Andy Lutomirski [this message]

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