From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S268351AbUHXV26 (ORCPT ); Tue, 24 Aug 2004 17:28:58 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S268344AbUHXV25 (ORCPT ); Tue, 24 Aug 2004 17:28:57 -0400 Received: from waste.org ([209.173.204.2]:35235 "EHLO waste.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S268353AbUHXV0o (ORCPT ); Tue, 24 Aug 2004 17:26:44 -0400 Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:26:37 -0500 From: Matt Mackall To: "Theodore Ts'o" Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, akpm@osdl.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] [4/4] /dev/random: Remove RNDGETPOOL ioctl Message-ID: <20040824212637.GI5414@waste.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 12:57:23AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > > Recently, someone has kvetched that RNDGETPOOL is a "security > vulnerability". Never mind that it is superuser only, and with > superuser privs you could load a nasty kernel module, or read the > entropy pool out of /dev/mem directly, but they are nevertheless still > spreading FUD. While such concerns are a bit exaggerated, the ioctl isn't in fact very useful: it only gets one of the pools. In other words, it's been obsolete even for debugging purposes since we went to two pools. The pool resize ioctl is still racy in a painful way and ought to be axed as well. -- Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.