From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758984AbXHQUAg (ORCPT ); Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:00:36 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752460AbXHQUA1 (ORCPT ); Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:00:27 -0400 Received: from e5.ny.us.ibm.com ([32.97.182.145]:33489 "EHLO e5.ny.us.ibm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752859AbXHQUA0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:00:26 -0400 Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:00:22 -0700 From: "Paul E. McKenney" To: Andrew Morton Cc: bunk@kernel.org, josh@kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, mingo@elte.hu Subject: Re: [PATCH] Make rcutorture RNG use temporal entropy Message-ID: <20070817200022.GH8464@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Reply-To: paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com References: <20070816024904.GA5312@linux.vnet.ibm.com> <20070817115356.cb201e42.akpm@linux-foundation.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20070817115356.cb201e42.akpm@linux-foundation.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, Aug 17, 2007 at 11:53:56AM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote: > On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:49:04 -0700 > "Paul E. McKenney" wrote: > > > Repost of http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/10/472 made available by request. > > > > The locking used by get_random_bytes() can conflict with the > > preempt_disable() and synchronize_sched() form of RCU. This patch changes > > rcutorture's RNG to gather entropy from the new cpu_clock() interface > > (relying on interrupts, preemption, daemons, and rcutorture's reader > > thread's rock-bottom scheduling priority to provide useful entropy), > > and also adds and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() to make that interface available > > to GPLed kernel modules such as rcutorture. > > > > Passes several hours of rcutorture. > > Please explain what "conflict with" means so that I can work out if > this is a needed-in-2.6.23 change, thanks. Not needed in 2.6.23. This change falls into the "preparation for -rt" category. Also in the "don't unnecessarily eat entropy, leave some for the people needing crypographically secure randomness" category. Thanx, Paul