[PATCH 6.18 121/641] hwrng: core - Allow runtime disabling of the HW RNG

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-02-25T01:44:03Z

6.18-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know.

------------------

From: Jonathan McDowell <noodles@meta.com>

[ Upstream commit e74b96d77da9eb5ee1b603c937c2adab5134a04b ]

The HW RNG core allows for manual selection of which RNG device to use,
but does not allow for no device to be enabled. It may be desirable to
do this on systems with only a single suitable hardware RNG, where we
need exclusive access to other functionality on this device. In
particular when performing TPM firmware upgrades this lets us ensure the
kernel does not try to access the device.

Before:

root@debian-qemu-efi:~# grep "" /sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_*
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_available:tpm-rng-0
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_current:tpm-rng-0
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_quality:1024
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_selected:0

After:

root@debian-qemu-efi:~# grep "" /sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_*
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_available:tpm-rng-0 none
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_current:tpm-rng-0
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_quality:1024
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_selected:0

root@debian-qemu-efi:~# echo none > /sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_current
root@debian-qemu-efi:~# grep "" /sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_*
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_available:tpm-rng-0 none
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_current:none
grep: /sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_quality: No such device
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_selected:1

(Observe using bpftrace no calls to TPM being made)

root@debian-qemu-efi:~# echo "" > /sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_current
root@debian-qemu-efi:~# grep "" /sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_*
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_available:tpm-rng-0 none
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_current:tpm-rng-0
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_quality:1024
/sys/devices/virtual/misc/hw_random/rng_selected:0

(Observe using bpftrace that calls to the TPM resume)

Signed-off-by: Jonathan McDowell <noodles@meta.com>
Signed-off-by: Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
Stable-dep-of: cc2f39d6ac48 ("hwrng: core - use RCU and work_struct to fix race condition")
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
drivers/char/hw_random/core.c | 9 ++++++---
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/char/hw_random/core.c b/drivers/char/hw_random/core.c
index 018316f546215..56d888bebe0c0 100644
--- a/drivers/char/hw_random/core.c
+++ b/drivers/char/hw_random/core.c
@@ -341,6 +341,9 @@ static ssize_t rng_current_store(struct device *dev,

if (sysfs_streq(buf, "")) {
err = enable_best_rng();
+ } else if (sysfs_streq(buf, "none")) {
+ cur_rng_set_by_user = 1;
+ drop_current_rng();
} else {
list_for_each_entry(rng, &rng_list, list) {
if (sysfs_streq(rng->name, buf)) {
@@ -392,7 +395,7 @@ static ssize_t rng_available_show(struct device *dev,
strlcat(buf, rng->name, PAGE_SIZE);
strlcat(buf, " ", PAGE_SIZE);
}
- strlcat(buf, "\n", PAGE_SIZE);
+ strlcat(buf, "none\n", PAGE_SIZE);
mutex_unlock(&rng_mutex);

return strlen(buf);
@@ -544,8 +547,8 @@ int hwrng_register(struct hwrng *rng)
/* Adjust quality field to always have a proper value */
rng->quality = min_t(u16, min_t(u16, default_quality, 1024), rng->quality ?: 1024);

- if (!current_rng ||
- (!cur_rng_set_by_user && rng->quality > current_rng->quality)) {
+ if (!cur_rng_set_by_user &&
+ (!current_rng || rng->quality > current_rng->quality)) {
/*
* Set new rng as current as the new rng source
* provides better entropy quality and was not
--
2.51.0