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Date:      Mon, 19 Aug 2013 08:40:06 +0100
From:      Mark R V Murray <mark@grondar.org>
To:        Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com>
Cc:        Tim Kientzle <tim@kientzle.com>, FreeBSD-arch Arch <freebsd-arch@freebsd.org>, secteam@freebsd.org, =?iso-8859-1?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=F8rgrav?= <des@des.no>
Subject:   Re: random(4) plugin infrastructure for mulitple RNG in a modular fashion
Message-ID:  <F8CEB750-7C07-42A5-97B0-40D742AD1C90@grondar.org>
In-Reply-To: <EE0B6A6A-38CD-4DB9-A811-F4C0BF83109E@bsdimp.com>
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> <4C1BD77C-8C6B-4044-9285-5978A3BC4B70@kientzle.com> <12B58C72-CFE3-4AD4-AD03-462A10E431D9@bsdimp.com> <3513A465-AD8D-4DDC-9408-2F89F9B86404@grondar.org> <EE0B6A6A-38CD-4DB9-A811-F4C0BF83109E@bsdimp.com>

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On 19 Aug 2013, at 08:24, Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
>> How would they get a score, and how would it be decided which is =
better? How is the score "calibrated"?
>=20
> For timecounters, we make judgements based on how good or bad we think =
the timekeeping ability of the underlying device. I'd imagine that we'd =
rate the hardware RNGs high, and the fallback means of harvesting =
entropy from interrupts medium, and anything that's really really bad as =
low. This would allow for the hardware RNGs to override the other =
sources of entropy, while still allowing fallback to reasonable entropy =
on devices that are known suspect (While still allowing the pig-headed =
and/or externally constrained folks to use the bad sources).

Aaah - so its a coarse good/average/bad thing, rather than a =
fine-grained number giving precise/critical ordering?

> For the mixers, the scoring mechanism makes less sense. You'd want =
more of an ordered list specified by the user to dictate policy to =
choose between nothing, fortuna and yarrow.

The mixers won't care, correct. As for the rest, its a bit of a tree of =
choices: HW branch - choice of "good" sources only (?). SW branch - =
choice of Yarrow/Fortuna and which sources (currently four, but will be =
increased) to harvest from.

> You'd also want a parameter to deal with failure here: panic or block.

Right, and a default for GENERIC.

M
--=20
Mark R V Murray


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