[PATCH] random: cap jitter samples per bit to factor of HZ

From: Jason A. Donenfeld
Date: Wed Jul 13 2022 - 11:11:30 EST


Currently the jitter mechanism will require two timer ticks per
iteration, and it requires N iterations per bit. This N is determined
with a small measurement, and if it's too big, it won't waste time with
jitter entropy because it'd take too long or not have sufficient entropy
anyway.

With the current max N of 32, there are large timeouts on systems with a
small CONFIG_HZ. Rather than set that maximum to 32, instead choose a
factor of CONFIG_HZ. In this case, 1/30 seems to yield sane values for
different configurations of CONFIG_HZ.

Reported-by: Vladimir Murzin <vladimir.murzin@xxxxxxx>
Fixes: 78c768e619fb ("random: vary jitter iterations based on cycle counter speed")
Signed-off-by: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Vladimir - Can you let me know if this appears to fix the issue you're
seeing? -Jason

drivers/char/random.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/char/random.c b/drivers/char/random.c
index e3dd1dd3dd22..a1af90bacc9f 100644
--- a/drivers/char/random.c
+++ b/drivers/char/random.c
@@ -1174,7 +1174,7 @@ static void __cold entropy_timer(struct timer_list *timer)
*/
static void __cold try_to_generate_entropy(void)
{
- enum { NUM_TRIAL_SAMPLES = 8192, MAX_SAMPLES_PER_BIT = 32 };
+ enum { NUM_TRIAL_SAMPLES = 8192, MAX_SAMPLES_PER_BIT = HZ / 30 };
struct entropy_timer_state stack;
unsigned int i, num_different = 0;
unsigned long last = random_get_entropy();
--
2.35.1