On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 3:46 PM, RW <rwmaillists@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:43:53 +0100
> Ben Laurie wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 2:38 PM, Bjoern A. Zeeb <bz@freebsd.org>
>> wrote:
>> > 7) send all data to the kernel and hash (arch dependent?) it +
>> > counter value into the buffer on overflow, as in b[n] = H(b[n] + c
>> > + i[n]) in the kernel
>> > (can control when buffer full and only then take action when
>> > needed, indepedent on how seed data is chosen, uses standard
>> > technology)
>>
>> IMO, this is the only good option.
>
> No it isn't. I means that the hashing is unconditional, so anyone that
> needs a faster boot needs to patch the kernel.
Has anyone measured the cost of doing this? Also, if you really want
to turn it off, we could provide a flag.
> It has no advantage
> whatsoever over a minor change to initrandom.
It absolutely has. It applies to all inputs to /dev/random, not just
those that come from initrandom. Also, should something get to write
to it before initrandom, initrandom's input would still be used.
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