Re: [RFC][PATCH] Pseudo-random number generator

[Jan Glauber <jan.glauber@de.ibm.com>]

On Thu, 2006-12-07 at 16:06 +0100, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Friday 01 December 2006 14:19, Jan Glauber wrote:
> > I've chosen the char driver since it allows the user to decide which pseudo-random
> > numbers he wants to use. That means there is a new interface for the s390
> > PRNG, called /dev/prandom.
> > 
> > I would like to know if there are any objections, especially with the chosen device
> > name.
> 
> This may be a stupid question, but what is it _good_ for? My understanding is
> that the crypt_s390_kmc() opcodes work in user mode as well as kernel mode, so
> you should not need a character device at all, but maybe just a small tool
> that spits prandom data to stdout.

Hm, why is /dev/urandom implemented in the kernel?

It could be done completely in user-space (like libica already does)
but I think having a device node where you can read from is the simplest
implementation. Also, if we can solve the security flaw we could use it
as replacement for /dev/urandom.

Jan