Not just dedicated black box rngs in verious chips (such as
multifunction I/O chips or the old Intel BIOS chip), but also
general hardware that happens to have plenty of inherent
randomness due to its design or implementation.
The simple easy to add RNG circuits include some completely
open discrete designs if that's desired.
On 16/08/2019 12:53, Dr Paul Dale wrote:
I agree. Using internal hardware in the processor for entropy depends
on everything. Each processor needs to be independently quantified
and not doing so becomes a risk assessment.
As for hardware sources, they are essentially black boxes and could
contain anything. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
tell if the hardware RNG is good or not. This doesn’t mean that they
should not be used, it just means that using them involves another
risk assessment.
On 16 Aug 2019, at 8:42 pm, Jakob Bohm via openssl-users
<openssl-users@xxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:openssl-users@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
[Top posting for consistency]
More than OS dependency, this depends on the exact hardware on the
platform:
CPU, support chips, peripheral chips. Usually some of these can provide
much more randomness than the highly predictable time of day/year RTC
clock.
And if none do, there are simple RNG hardware designs that could be
added
in a corner of the circuit, either on a plugin board or as part of a
board
already customized to the application.
On 16/08/2019 11:33, Dr Paul Dale wrote:
Two bits of RTC is nowhere near enough entropy. I could break two
bits by hand in a few seconds — there are only four possibilities.
The best outcome is an hardware random number generator. These are
often not readily available.
Next would be waiting for enough entropy from interrupts, timers and
the like.
You didn’t specify what operating system/kernel you are using so
further advise is less than useful.
On 16 Aug 2019, at 7:26 pm, Chitrang Srivastava
<chitrang.srivastava@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:chitrang.srivastava@xxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:chitrang.srivastava@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi,
I am working on an embedded platform and now ported openssl 1.1.1b
TLS 1.2/1.3 is working fine.
While analysing random number , Rand pool initialization calls
where I am returning like this ,
size_t *rand_pool_acquire_entropy*(RAND_POOL *pool)
{
return rand_pool_entropy_available(pool);
}
As noticed that *rand_unix.c* has an implementation wcih samples 2
bits of RTC, would that give enough entropy or any other
recommendation to have enough entropy for embedded platforms?
Enjoy
Jakob
--
Jakob Bohm, CIO, Partner, WiseMo A/S. https://www.wisemo.com
Transformervej 29, 2860 Søborg, Denmark. Direct +45 31 13 16 10
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