Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 22:48:41 +1100 (EST) From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> To: Kris Kennaway <kris@hub.freebsd.org> Cc: Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.org>, audit@FreeBSD.org, Warner Losh <imp@village.org> Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/i386/conf files.i386 src/sys/kern kern_fork.c src/sys/libkern arc4random.c src/sys/sys libkern.h Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9911292245180.12106-100000@alphplex.bde.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.9911282330220.21883-100000@hub.freebsd.org>
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On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, Kris Kennaway wrote: > On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Bruce Evans wrote: > > This does the same thing as the i386 implementation on a bad day. The > > caller must be prepared for a limited amount of entropy being available. > > All callers except the ones for userland get this wrong by calling > > read_random() on alphas and always ignoring the result of read_random(). > > Can you suggest a decent fix? Simply polling until we fill our desired > buffer? Using read_random_unlimited() may well be "good enough" in many > cases. Polling would be too slow. I don't know if read_random_unlimited() is good enough. Randomness is needed soon after booting. Then it is not clear that read_random_unlimited() can provide _any_ true randomness. See the comment in init_main.c where random() is initialised. Bruce To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-audit" in the body of the message
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