From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261665AbUBVDtd (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Feb 2004 22:49:33 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261667AbUBVDtd (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Feb 2004 22:49:33 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:18312 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261665AbUBVDta (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Feb 2004 22:49:30 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:46:23 -0800 From: "Randy.Dunlap" To: lkml Cc: Schulman.Andrew@epamail.epa.gov Subject: [PATCH] Re: hw_random and the missing Intel RNGs Message-Id: <20040221194623.1b4cc9e7.rddunlap@osdl.org> Organization: OSDL X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.8a (GTK+ 1.2.10; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org (in reply to: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=106816271502140&w=2) hw_random has two problems with Intel chipsets: (1) It fails to detect when no RNG is present. (2) Intel has stopped putting RNGs into their chipsets. I've written a description of this problem at http://home.comcast.net/~andrex/hardware-RNG/index.html. Here's a summary: [snipped] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andrew, I think you should have supplied a patch with your detailed email. How's this look? Does anyone read docs nowadays? -- ~Randy // Linux linux-263-work // Document Intel hardware RNG changes. diffstat:= Documentation/hw_random.txt | 12 ++++++++++++ 1 files changed, 12 insertions(+) diff -Naurp ./Documentation/hw_random.txt~intelrng ./Documentation/hw_random.txt --- ./Documentation/hw_random.txt~intelrng 2004-02-17 19:58:40.000000000 -0800 +++ ./Documentation/hw_random.txt 2004-02-21 19:38:32.000000000 -0800 @@ -25,6 +25,18 @@ About the Intel RNG hardware, from the f access to our RNG for use as a security feature. At this time, the RNG is only to be used with a system in an OS-present state. +Intel hardware RNG update: + + hw_random has two problems with Intel chipsets: + + (1) It fails to detect when no RNG is present. + (2) These products and tools are no longer being manufactured by Intel. + + See + for detailed information. + See + for related product information. + Theory of operation: Character driver. Using the standard open()