Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 12:40:04 +0100 From: Mark R V Murray <mark@grondar.org> To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=F8rgrav?= <des@des.no> Cc: Arthur Mesh <arthurmesh@gmail.com>, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org, secteam@freebsd.org, Philip Paeps <philip@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: random(4) plugin infrastructure for mulitple RNG in a modular fashion Message-ID: <445431BF-41DB-42B5-90C8-B73832B37BAF@grondar.org> In-Reply-To: <86r4dr5j3p.fsf@nine.des.no> References: <20130807183112.GA79319@dragon.NUXI.org> <86pptfnu33.fsf@nine.des.no> <20130815231713.GD76666@x96.org> <20130816002625.GE76666@x96.org> <9B274F48-0C88-4117-BEAC-1A555772A3C5@grondar.org> <86a9kf733d.fsf@nine.des.no> <0C97B866-A169-4141-8368-AA7F5B5382F4@grondar.org> <861u5r71zi.fsf@nine.des.no> <892B11BD-396D-4F82-B97C-753F72CA494D@grondar.org> <86r4dr5j3p.fsf@nine.des.no>
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On 18 Aug 2013, at 12:33, Dag-Erling Sm=F8rgrav <des@des.no> wrote:
> Mark R V Murray <mark@grondar.org> writes:
>> OK - in the context of what is currently there, it makes less sense =
than
>> that; loading RDRAND/Ivy and Nehemiah simultaneously is silly because
>> they are different architectures, and only one can ever work on a =
particular
>> box; so what happens is some script selects the wrong one? I suppose
>> the probe is there to prevent this.
>=20
> I don't know offhand whether we support them, but there are discrete
> HWRNGs which might be present alongside an on-die HWRNG; and in all
> cases, Yarrow and / or Fortuna may be present in the kernel alongside =
a
> supported HWRNG.
We do support them; I sent a list. Its a black/white choice; either they
get used as Yarroow source data, or they are straight /dev/random =
drivers,
not both.
>> We still have the anachronism where the older hardware RNGs are =
turned
>> into /dev/random devices and the newer ones supply their entropy to
>> the software (Yarrow) for further processing.
>=20
> Provided the HWRNG is of sufficient quality, the user should be =
allowed
> to use it directly (through /dev/random) without Yarrow / Fortuna. At
> the same time, we do not want to lose the ability to feed their output
> to Yarrow / Fortuna. Plugging all {P,HW}RNGs into a common framework
> makes it *easier*, not *harder*, to support both options.
The current code does not address that, but happens to be a useful, if
small, step in getting That does not appear to be part of the design,
rather a useful accident.
M
--=20
Mark R V Murray
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