Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few uses of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM

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To: Brandeburg, Jesse <jesse.brandeburg@...>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@...>, Chris Peterson <cpeterso@...>, <jeff@...>, <netdev@...>, <linux-kernel@...>, <mpm@...>
Date: Thursday, May 15, 2008 - 5:55 pm

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 09:07:52AM -0700, Brandeburg, Jesse wrote:

We have two random number interfaces:
- /dev/random
- /dev/urandom

If a customer wants to get data from /dev/random although there's not 
enough entropy that's not a problem we can solve (we can only try to 
gather more real entropy if possible).

If he can live with dubious data he can simply use /dev/urandom .

If a customer wants to use /dev/random and demands to get dubious data 
there if nothing better is available fulfilling his wish only moves 
the security bug from his crappy application to the Linux kernel.

But what we could perhaps do with some kind of IRQF_SAMPLE_DUBIOUS would 
be to improve the quality of the data in /dev/urandom if there's not 
enough entropy available?

I have seen embedded systems with zero entropy, and dubious entropy 
might there be better than no entropy at all.
Or am I wrong on the latter?

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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Messages in current thread:
RE: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Brandeburg, Jesse, (Thu May 15, 12:07 pm)
Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Adrian Bunk, (Thu May 15, 5:55 pm)
Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Alejandro Riveira , (Mon May 26, 9:43 am)
Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Lennart Sorensen, (Fri May 16, 10:15 am)
Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Henrique de Moraes Holschuh..., (Thu May 15, 6:29 pm)
Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Henrique de Moraes Holschuh..., (Thu May 15, 7:58 pm)
Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Henrique de Moraes Holschuh..., (Thu May 15, 7:02 pm)
Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few us..., Henrique de Moraes Holschuh..., (Thu May 15, 7:46 pm)