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random: Use arch_get_random_int instead of cycle counter if avail 

We still don't use rdrand in /dev/random, which just seems stupid. We
accept the *cycle*counter* as a random input, but we don't accept
rdrand? That's just broken.

Sure, people can do things in user space (write to /dev/random, use
rdrand in addition to /dev/random themselves etc etc), but that
*still* seems to be a particularly stupid reason for saying "we
shouldn't bother to try to do better in /dev/random".

And even if somebody really doesn't trust rdrand as a source of random
bytes, it seems singularly stupid to trust the cycle counter *more*.

So I'd suggest the attached patch. I'm not going to even bother
arguing that we should add more bits to the entropy estimate, because
that's not the point - I don't care if /dev/random fills up slowly or
not, I think it's just stupid to not use the bits we can get from
rdrand and mix them into the strong randomness pool.

Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/CA%2B55aFwn59N1=m651QAyTy-1gO1noGbK18zwKDwvwqnravA84A@mail.gmail.com
Acked-by: "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>
Acked-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
Acked-by: Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
Cc: Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
Cc: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@linux.intel.com>
This commit is contained in:
Linus Torvalds 2011-12-22 11:36:22 -08:00 committed by H. Peter Anvin
parent 5f0a6e2d50
commit cf833d0b99
1 changed files with 6 additions and 2 deletions
Show Stats Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

8
drivers/char/random.c
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@ -624,8 +624,8 @@ static struct timer_rand_state input_timer_state;
static void add_timer_randomness(struct timer_rand_state *state, unsigned num)
{
struct {
cycles_t cycles;
long jiffies;
unsigned cycles;
unsigned num;
} sample;
long delta, delta2, delta3;
@ -637,7 +637,11 @@ static void add_timer_randomness(struct timer_rand_state *state, unsigned num)
goto out;
sample.jiffies = jiffies;
sample.cycles = get_cycles();
/* Use arch random value, fall back to cycles */
if (!arch_get_random_int(&sample.cycles))
sample.cycles = get_cycles();
sample.num = num;
mix_pool_bytes(&input_pool, &sample, sizeof(sample));