From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:36:11 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:36:02 -0400 Received: from h131s117a129n47.user.nortelnetworks.com ([47.129.117.131]:50337 "HELO pcard0ks.ca.nortel.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:35:58 -0400 Message-ID: <3B83D1BA.1D8E507@nortelnetworks.com> Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:37:30 -0400 From: Chris Friesen X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.3-custom i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Andi Kleen Cc: "Friesen, Christopher [CAR:VS16:EXCH]" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: why no call to add_interrupt_randomness() on PPC? In-Reply-To: <3B83C430.7E5F59C3@nortelnetworks.com.suse.lists.linux.kernel> 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 Andi Kleen wrote: > Nobody except for a few really obscure drivers use SA_SAMPLE_RANDOM > with their interrupt handlers (none on ppc as far as I can see) On > i386 all the gathering is normally done via the keyboard/mouse drivers > and the blk interface. The reason e.g. Macs normally do not gather > entropy is that they're using the new input layer for keyboard and > mouse which for some reason doesn't feed its events into the entropy > pool. I believe Wojtech did a patch for it, but I don't know if it has > been merged into the ppc tree yet. The reason I'm looking at this is because I'm on a headless net-booting device. We properly save and restore the entropy pool on startup/shutdown, but without using network interrupts we have no way to generate more entropy. I was looking at turning on SA_SAMPLE_RANDOM in our network driver, but then I realized that it would have no effect because it isn't even supported on PPC. So the upshot seems to be that there is no real reason why it isn't there, it just hasn't been seen as required. Am I right? Chris -- Chris Friesen | MailStop: 043/33/F10 Nortel Networks | work: (613) 765-0557 3500 Carling Avenue | fax: (613) 765-2986 Nepean, ON K2H 8E9 Canada | email: cfriesen@nortelnetworks.com