Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 16:01:18 -0400 From: Dan Moschuk <dan@FreeBSD.org> To: "Jeroen C. van Gelderen" <jeroen@vangelderen.org> Cc: Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>, arch@FreeBSD.org, phk@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: (2nd iteration) New /dev/(random|null|zero) - review, please Message-ID: <20000606160118.C3351@spirit.jaded.net> In-Reply-To: <393BEE84.BBAD3E82@vangelderen.org>; from jeroen@vangelderen.org on Mon, Jun 05, 2000 at 02:16:36PM -0400 References: <200006051720.TAA18713@gratis.grondar.za> <393BEE84.BBAD3E82@vangelderen.org>
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| > o The random number generator will give random-looking output, but does | > absolutely no harvesting of entropy at the moment. Because I want | > it to be a loadable module, I need some way of registering the entropy | > harvesting routines. Something like weak-symboled routines that are | > overridden when the module is loaded would be ideal. Suggestions? | | Split-level. Entropy sources should export an entropy device. Yarrow | should bind to all available entropy devices and use those. This would | allow for | - entropy devices in KLDs. | - dynamic addition/removal of entropy sources (USB). | - separation of RNG policy (Yarrow) from entropy gathering. | - dynamic IRQs not affecting RNG security. I have a driver for the i82802 chipset (Intel Thermal Noise RNG) that needs to be newbus-ified before committing. Anyone that can help me with this, it would be appreciated. Having hooks in various drivers to export entropy to yarrow is a great idea. It would certainly give us a nice framework to be able to secure other areas in the kernel, such as random pid generation, src ports and sequence numbers. | > o The RNG is slow; the others are much faster than their originals. | | Can be tweaked. Use a 256-bit cipher like Rijndael and build a hash | out of it. Would improve security too as the entropy pool would hold | 256 bits. You can also pre-generate a few KB of random bits. Because of the significant speed decrease in using Yarrow, I'd like to see us keep the current implementation around, and having Yarrow as an option or psuedo-device to be used instead. -- Dan Moschuk (TFreak!dan@freebsd.org) "Don't get even -- get odd!" To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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