Re: [PATCH] random: add a way to get some random bits into the entropy pools early on

[Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:41:22 -0600
Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> wrote:


> > 
> > This patch adds a function to the random driver so that various
> > pieces of the kernel can add random bits (but not entropy!) to the
> > pool, to avoid this dupicate ID problem.
> 
> This appears to be equivalent to making random initialize earlier,
> except with more code?

well sort of kinda, but arbitrarily early (eg I made the oops ID just
call this whenever it's called first)

> 
> If we're going down a route like this, I'd like to see the ability to
> actually mix in data (ie MAC addresses, DMI data, etc.) rather than
> just timing.

I'll make a second patch for that; it does make sense to do this,
but it also makes sense to just have a "just do the time" helper



-- 
Arjan van de Ven 	Intel Open Source Technology Centre
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