On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 13:13:16 -0500
Neil Horman <nhor...@redhat.com> wrote:

> Thats not my understanding.  As I understand the changes, /dev/random
> has been converted so that its no longer blocks (which is why the
> removed the read_wakeup_threshold, since theres never a case where
> /dev/random will block anymore).  That doesn't prevent rngd from
> feeding new entropy into the kernel though, via /dev/randoms
> RNDADDTOENTCNT and RNDADDENTROPY ioctls (which is how we feed in more
> entropy)

If you are right, that is excellent.  I've been hesitating with
creating the patch because it is becoming like recreating more and more
of random.c.  I have to be really careful because the kernel expects
the new interface, so I have to leave it, but I still have to add the
obsolete interface back for my use.

Doesn't the elimination of the shadow pool, and the removal of
push_to_pool end the ability to push entropy?  I'm going to have to
bite the bullet and take the code apart until I can understand the new
system.

> I'm fine with gplv3, IIRC rngd was initially licensed as gplv2 or
> later, so it should be good.

Great! 

> Yeah, I just ordered an RTL2832U from amazon for a few bucks, seems
> like a good cheap entropy source to make available.  I'll try look
> into bit-babbler as well, but at $100, that might not be as
> worthwhile.

Yeah, I was thinking of for server farm and cloud provider usage.

> Usually network entropy is avoided because its subject to
> manipulation from off system.  You can hammer a target card enough
> that you can do enough prediction of interrupt timing to predict what
> the outcome will be.

I'm thinking of a dedicated server that does nothing but provide
entropy.  A couple of different sources of entropy, and a private
network address.  The servers sign up as clients, and the entropy server
sends them entropy updates on a periodic basis, which wakes the client
and reseeds the crng.
 
> As for radio sources, I'm not sure.  $10 is actually a huge cost on a
> BOM when you're building 1000's of systems, and crngs are cheaper,
> especially when an OS adds them anyway to handle the 'no hardware
> source' use case.

Sure, individual entropy sources for each server is overkill and too
expensive. But if it's spread across thousands of servers via a
dedicated entropy server, it's just a few cents a server, or less.
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