Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 13:33:30 +0200 From: =?utf-8?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= <des@des.no> To: Mark R V Murray <mark@grondar.org> 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: <86r4dr5j3p.fsf@nine.des.no> In-Reply-To: <892B11BD-396D-4F82-B97C-753F72CA494D@grondar.org> (Mark R. V. Murray's message of "Sun, 18 Aug 2013 11:20:03 %2B0100") 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>
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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 particu=
lar
> box; so what happens is some script selects the wrong one? I suppose
> the probe is there to prevent this.
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 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.
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.
DES
--=20
Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav - des@des.no
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