Re: [PATCH v1 1/1] s390/arch_random: Buffer true random data

Jason A. Donenfeld
2022-07-06T16:26:32Z

Hi Harald,

On Wed, Jul 06, 2022 at 06:18:27PM +0200, Harald Freudenberger wrote:
> On 2022-07-05 18:27, Holger Dengler wrote:
> > Hi Jason,
> >
> > On 05/07/2022 17:11, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> >> Hi Holger,
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jul 05, 2022 at 04:58:30PM +0200, Holger Dengler wrote:
> >>> It is true, that the performance of the instruction is not really
> >>> relevant, but only for calls outside of an interrupt context. I did
> >>> some ftrace logging for the s390_random_get_seed_long() calls, and -
> >>> as you said - there are a few calls per minute. But there was also
> >>> some repeating calls in interrupt context. On systems with a huge
> >>> interrupt load, this can cause severe performance impacts. I've no
> >>
> >> It'd be interesting to know more about this. The way you get
> >> arch_random_get_seed_long() from irq context is:
> >>
> >> get_random_{bytes,int,long,u32,u64}()
> >> crng_make_state()
> >> crng_reseed() <-- Rarely
> >> extract_entropy()
> >> arch_get_random_seed_long()
> >>
> >> So if an irq user of get_random_xx() is the unlucky one in the minute
> >> span who has to call crng_reseed() then, yea, that'll happen. But I
> >> wonder about this luck aspect. What scenarios are you seeing where
> >> this
> >> happens all the time? Which driver is using random bytes *so* commonly
> >> from irq context? Not that, per say, there's anything wrong with that,
> >> but it could be eyebrow raising, and might point to de facto solutions
> >> that mostly take care of this.
> >
> > I saw a few calls in interrupt context during my tracing, but I didn't
> > look to see which ones they were. Let me figure that out in the next
> > few days and provide more information on that.
> >
> >> One such direction might be making a driver that does such a thing do
> >> it
> >> a little bit less, somehow. Another direction would be preferring
> >> non-irqs to handle crng_reseed(), but not disallowing irqs entirely,
> >> with a patch something like the one below. Or maybe there are other
> >> ideas.
> >
> > Reduce the number of trng in interrupt context is a possibility, but -
> > in my opinion - only one single trng instruction call in interrupt
> > context in one too much.
> >
> > For the moment, I would propose to drop the buffering but also return
> > false, if arch_random_get_seed_long() is called in interrupt context.
> >
> > diff --git a/arch/s390/include/asm/archrandom.h
> > b/arch/s390/include/asm/archrandom.h
> > index 2c6e1c6ecbe7..711357bdc464 100644
> > --- a/arch/s390/include/asm/archrandom.h
> > +++ b/arch/s390/include/asm/archrandom.h
> > @@ -32,7 +32,8 @@ static inline bool __must_check
> > arch_get_random_int(unsigned int *v)
> >
> > static inline bool __must_check arch_get_random_seed_long(unsigned
> > long *v)
> > {
> > - if (static_branch_likely(&s390_arch_random_available)) {
> > + if (static_branch_likely(&s390_arch_random_available) &&
> > + !in_interrupt()) {
> > cpacf_trng(NULL, 0, (u8 *)v, sizeof(*v));
> > atomic64_add(sizeof(*v), &s390_arch_random_counter);
> > return true;
> >
> > (on-top of your commit, without our buffering patch)
> >
> >>
> >> But all this is to say that having some more of the "mundane" details
> >> about this might actually help us.
> >>
> >> Jason
> >>
> >> diff --git a/drivers/char/random.c b/drivers/char/random.c
> >> index e3dd1dd3dd22..81df8cdf2a62 100644
> >> --- a/drivers/char/random.c
> >> +++ b/drivers/char/random.c
> >> @@ -270,6 +270,9 @@ static bool crng_has_old_seed(void)
> >> static bool early_boot = true;
> >> unsigned long interval = CRNG_RESEED_INTERVAL;
> >>
> >> + if (in_hardirq())
> >> + interval += HZ * 10;
> >> +
> >> if (unlikely(READ_ONCE(early_boot))) {
> >> time64_t uptime = ktime_get_seconds();
> >> if (uptime >= CRNG_RESEED_INTERVAL / HZ * 2)
> >>
>
> Hi Holger and Jason
> I tried to find out what is the reason of the invocations in interrupt
> context.
> First I have to admit that there is in fact not much of
> arch_get_random_seed_long()
> invocation any more in the recent kernel (5.19-rc5). I see about 100
> invocations
> within 10 minutes with an LPAR running some qperf and dd dumps on dasds
> test load.
> About half of these invocations is in interrupt context. I
> dump_stack()ed some of
> these and I always catch the function
> kfence_guarded_alloc()
> prandom_u32_max()
> prandom_u32()
> get_random_u32()
> _get_random_bytes()
> crng_make_state()
> crng_reseed()
> extract_entropy()
> arch_get_random_seed_long()
>
> However, with so few invocations it should not make any harm when there
> is a
> even very expensive trng() invocation in interrupt context.
>
> But I think we should check, if this is really something to backport to
> the older
> kernels where arch_get_random_seed_long() is called really frequency.

I backported the current random.c design to old kernels, so the
situation there should be the same as in 5.19-rc5.

So if you feel such rare usage is find even in_hardirq(), then I suppose
there's nothing more to do here?

Jason