Re: [PATCH] random: add random_initialized command line param

From: Stephan Mueller
Date: Tue Jun 23 2015 - 17:47:48 EST


Am Dienstag, 23. Juni 2015, 22:44:11 schrieb Pavel Machek:

Hi Pavel,

> On Mon 2015-05-18 18:25:25, Stephan Mueller wrote:
> > Make the threshold at which the output entropy pools are considered to
> > be initialized configurable via a kernel command line option. The
> > current integer value of 128 bits is a good default value. However, some
> > user groups may want to use different values. For example, the SOGIS
> > group now requires 125 bits at least (BSI, the participant at that group
> > used to require 100 bits). NIST moved from 80 bits to 112 bits starting
> > with 2014.
> >
> > It is therefore to be expected that in the future, this threshold may
> > increase for different user groups.
>
> Speaking of random and kernel parameters... should we add random=<hex
> digits> parameter to pass entropy from bootloader to the kernel?

Everybody can see that string. How do you think that way of providing entropy
is protected?

> u-boot-SPL does DRAM calibration, for example, and I guess that may
> provide some rather hard to guess values...
>
> [I initialy misread parameter below as "random_initize=" and thought
> it does exactly this...]
> Pavel
>
> > + random_initialized= [KNL] Set the threshold in bits at which the
> > + Linux random number generator considers an output
> > + entropy pool initialized.
> > + Format: <int> (must be >= 112 and <= size of output
> > + entropy pool in bits)
> > + Default: 128
> > +


--
Ciao
Stephan
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