Re: [PATCH 07/12] random: use the arch-specific rng in xfer_secondary_pool

Theodore Ts'o
2012-07-08T01:41:35Z

On Sun, Jul 08, 2012 at 02:06:46AM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
>
> Surely the number of random bytes being added is i * sizeof(long), not
> sizeof(u.hwrand)?
>

Meh; Kees Cook has made the same observation. Basically, in the
unlikely case where RDRAND fails, we'll end up mixing in stack
garbage. It's not a security vulnerability, since the contents of the
entropy pool never gets exposed. In fact, one could argue that mixing
in some unknown garbage from the kernel stack might actually help a
little; but it can't hurt.

- Ted