Re: [PATCH] random: add blocking facility to urandom

Steve Grubb
2011-09-07T21:43:37Z

On Wednesday, September 07, 2011 05:35:18 PM Jarod Wilson wrote:
> Another proposal that has been kicked around: a 3rd random chardev,
> which implements this functionality, leaving urandom unscathed. Some
> udev magic or a driver param could move/disable/whatever urandom and put
> this alternate device in its place. Ultimately, identical behavior, but
> the true urandom doesn't get altered at all.

Right, and that's what I was trying to say is that if we do all that and switch out
urandom with something new that does what we need, what's the difference in just
patching the behavior into urandom and calling it a day? Its simpler, less fragile,
admins won't make mistakes setting up the wrong one in a chroot, already has the
FIPS-140 dressing, and is auditable.

-Steve