[PATCH] hw_random: Improve description of the ->read() interface

[PATCH] hw_random: Improve description of the ->read() interface

[Daniel Thompson]

Currently, very few RNG drivers support single byte reads using the
->read() interface. Of the 14 drivers in drivers/char/hw_random that
support this interface only three of these actually support max == 1.
The other behaviours vary between return 0, return 2, return 4 and return
-EIO).

This is not a problem in practice because the core hw_random code never
performs a read shorter than 16 bytes. The documentation for this function
already contrains the alignment of the buffer pointer, so let's also
guarantee that the buffer is at least as large as its alignment.

This constraint is intended to be the weakest guarantee neccessary to
allow driver writers to safely simplify their code.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Thompson <daniel.thompson@linaro.org>
---
 include/linux/hw_random.h | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/hw_random.h b/include/linux/hw_random.h
index 4f7d8f4b1e9a..34a0dc18f327 100644
--- a/include/linux/hw_random.h
+++ b/include/linux/hw_random.h
@@ -29,7 +29,9 @@
  *			Returns the number of lower random bytes in "data".
  *			Must not be NULL.    *OBSOLETE*
  * @read:		New API. drivers can fill up to max bytes of data
- *			into the buffer. The buffer is aligned for any type.
+ *			into the buffer. The buffer is aligned for any type
+ *			and max is guaranteed to be >= to that alignment
+ *			(either 4 or 8 depending on architecture).
  * @priv:		Private data, for use by the RNG driver.
  * @quality:		Estimation of true entropy in RNG's bitstream
  *			(per mill).
--
2.7.4

Re: [PATCH] hw_random: Improve description of the ->read() interface

[Herbert Xu]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:37:21PM +0100, Daniel Thompson wrote:
> Currently, very few RNG drivers support single byte reads using the
> ->read() interface. Of the 14 drivers in drivers/char/hw_random that
> support this interface only three of these actually support max == 1.
> The other behaviours vary between return 0, return 2, return 4 and return
> -EIO).
> 
> This is not a problem in practice because the core hw_random code never
> performs a read shorter than 16 bytes. The documentation for this function
> already contrains the alignment of the buffer pointer, so let's also
> guarantee that the buffer is at least as large as its alignment.
> 
> This constraint is intended to be the weakest guarantee neccessary to
> allow driver writers to safely simplify their code.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Daniel Thompson <daniel.thompson@linaro.org>

Patch applied.  Thanks.
-- 
Email: Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/
PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt