I sent email about this about a week ago. The attached patch allows
applications to explicitly seed the RNG before first use on Unix, so
that it does not automatically seed itself via RAND_poll().
This is beneficial for three reasons:
1) On some platforms, the Unix RAND_poll() implementation is
pretty dodgy. For example, it can fall back to using just
getpid() etc on very old platforms; worse, on OpenBSD, it
is #ifdeffed in such a way that all the entropy comes
from libc arc4random() (there may be a FIPS issue here,
since I do not think the Approved DRBG is really supposed
to be keyed in this manner).
2) RAND_poll() pulls a lot of bits from /dev/urandom. Some
applications (like OpenSSH) repeatedly re-initialize the
library (for example, by re-execing themselves) which causes
severe depletion of the system entropy pool. This change
lets such applications avoid that problem by explicitly
passing entropy across the library re-init, then feeding it
back in via RAND_seed(), RAND_add(), etc.
3) It simplifies the md_rand code slightly by removing the
"initialized" variable and logic which surrounds it. Now
RAND_poll() is simply called if there is not enough entropy
available, and not called if there is enough entropy.
The diff is against the in-tree OpenSSL in NetBSD. Hopefully it will
apply cleanly to the head and branch OpenSSL sources.
--
Thor Lancelot Simon t...@panix.com
"The liberties...lose much of their value whenever those who have greater
private means are permitted to use their advantages to control the course
of public debate." -John Rawls
? openssl-rand.diff
Index: crypto/rand/md_rand.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/src/crypto/external/bsd/openssl/dist/crypto/rand/md_rand.c,v
retrieving revision 1.1.1.3
diff -u -r1.1.1.3 md_rand.c
--- crypto/rand/md_rand.c 5 Jun 2011 14:59:27 -0000 1.1.1.3
+++ crypto/rand/md_rand.c 4 Mar 2012 17:57:30 -0000
@@ -141,7 +141,6 @@
static unsigned char md[MD_DIGEST_LENGTH];
static long md_count[2]={0,0};
static double entropy=0;
-static int initialized=0;
static unsigned int crypto_lock_rand = 0; /* may be set only when a thread
* holds CRYPTO_LOCK_RAND
@@ -187,7 +186,6 @@
md_count[0]=0;
md_count[1]=0;
entropy=0;
- initialized=0;
}
static void ssleay_rand_add(const void *buf, int num, double add)
@@ -389,18 +387,15 @@
CRYPTO_w_unlock(CRYPTO_LOCK_RAND2);
crypto_lock_rand = 1;
- if (!initialized)
- {
- RAND_poll();
- initialized = 1;
- }
-
if (!stirred_pool)
do_stir_pool = 1;
ok = (entropy >= ENTROPY_NEEDED);
if (!ok)
{
+
+ RAND_poll();
+
/* If the PRNG state is not yet unpredictable, then seeing
* the PRNG output may help attackers to determine the new
* state; thus we have to decrease the entropy estimate.
@@ -571,11 +566,10 @@
CRYPTO_w_unlock(CRYPTO_LOCK_RAND2);
crypto_lock_rand = 1;
}
-
- if (!initialized)
+
+ if (entropy < ENTROPY_NEEDED)
{
RAND_poll();
- initialized = 1;
}
ret = entropy >= ENTROPY_NEEDED;
Index: crypto/rand/rand_unix.c
===================================================================
RCS file:
/cvsroot/src/crypto/external/bsd/openssl/dist/crypto/rand/rand_unix.c,v
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -r1.2 rand_unix.c
--- crypto/rand/rand_unix.c 19 Jul 2009 23:30:41 -0000 1.2
+++ crypto/rand/rand_unix.c 4 Mar 2012 17:57:30 -0000
@@ -182,6 +182,16 @@
u_int32_t rnd = 0, i;
unsigned char buf[ENTROPY_NEEDED];
+ /*
+ * XXX is this really a good idea? It has the seemingly
+ * XXX very undesirable eventual result of keying the CTR_DRBG
+ * XXX generator exclusively with key material produced by
+ * XXX the libc arc4random(). It also guarantees that even
+ * XXX if the generator tries to use RAND_poll() to rekey
+ * XXX itself after a call to fork() etc, it will end up with
+ * XXX the same state, since the libc arc4 state will be the same
+ * XXX unless explicitly updated by the application.
+ */
for (i = 0; i < sizeof(buf); i++) {
if (i % 4 == 0)
rnd = arc4random();
