From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:31:48 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:31:38 -0400 Received: from h24-64-71-161.cg.shawcable.net ([24.64.71.161]:11765 "EHLO webber.adilger.int") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:31:23 -0400 From: Andreas Dilger Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:30:58 -0600 To: Alex Bligh - linux-kernel Cc: Steve Hill , "Richard B. Johnson" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: /dev/random in 2.4.6 Message-ID: <20010816143058.Z31114@turbolinux.com> In-Reply-To: <20010816131112.V31114@turbolinux.com> <212844030.997994112@[169.254.45.213]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <212844030.997994112@[169.254.45.213]> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.20i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 08:35:12PM +0100, Alex Bligh - linux-kernel wrote: > It's a while since I looked, but I /thought/ entropy only came from > IDE (not for instance from SCSI, and certainly not when everything > is sitting in cache). I have a reasonably active mailserver (SCSI, > no k/b, no mouse, lots of RAM) which doesn't have enough entropy > to cope with SSL/TLS gracefully without relying on the network > traffic (i.e. behaves like it is ramdisk only). Actually, AFAIK you _may_ get entropy from the IDE interrupts directly (I didn't check), but you also appear to get entropy from block I/O completions as well. I _thought_ I had seen such lines in IDE, DAC960, and also in the SCSI midlayer, but then I wasn't paying much attention to those - I was trying to track down the interrupts for net devices. If it is NOT in the SCSI block I/O layer, it should probably be added. Whether it makes sense to have entropy from both the block layer and the actual device IRQs is an issue left up to the security experts (it may have correlation, and not be good entropy). Cheers, Andreas -- Andreas Dilger \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto, \ would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?" http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/ -- Dogbert