Am Freitag, 17. April 2015, 10:14:30 schrieb Herbert Xu: Hi Herbert, > On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 03:19:17AM +0200, Stephan Mueller wrote: > > 1. during initialization of a DRBG instance, seed from get_random_bytes to > > have a DRBG state that is seeded and usable. > > I think we either need to use real entropy and block, or mark > the DRBG unusable until such a time that it has been seeded > with real entropy. Do you really think that this is possible? If the DRBG becomes the stdrng, you would imply that those callers (e.g. IPSEC) may suffer from a long block (and with long I mean not just seconds, but minutes). Furthermore, I fail to see the difference between the current default stdrng (krng -- which is just get_random_bytes in disguise). Thus, the current situation with the DRBG seeding is not different from the non-DRBG use case. Therefore, I still think we: - need to satisfy users with an immediate need for random numbers immediately after instantiating the DRBG - need to obtain "/dev/random"-like entropy as we can get hold of it. Just as a side note, about 2 years ago, I offered a solution that also provides instant entropy at the time you need it -- see [1]. Unfortunately, it was rejected based on grounds I cannot fully comprehend [1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/10/11/582 -- Ciao Stephan -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-crypto" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html