Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 15 Aug 2003 21:14:14 +0200
From:      "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>
To:        Sam Leffler <sam@errno.com>
Cc:        cvs-all@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/sys/libkern arc4random.c 
Message-ID:  <12071.1060974854@critter.freebsd.dk>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:07:51 PDT." <87953260.1060949270@melange.errno.com> 

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
In message <87953260.1060949270@melange.errno.com>, Sam Leffler writes:
>
>Note that the data generated by arc4random needs to be exported to user 
>apps for seeding crypto operations when operating in a chroot'd environment 
>where /dev/random is not available.

I actually thought about that a bit, and I think "/dev/random" is
a wrong concept.

I think we should have a randomdata(2) system call instead.

Having a /dev/random which is sometimes (chroot/jail) means that
applications running under those circumstances are incredible fragile
to spoofing by creating a fake "/dev/random" in some way.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?12071.1060974854>