Re: [PATCH v2 7/9] random: use simpler fast key erasure flow on per-cpu keys

Jason A. Donenfeld
2022-02-09T11:56:43Z

On Wed, Feb 9, 2022 at 9:31 AM Dominik Brodowski
<linux@dominikbrodowski.net> wrote:
> Do we need a BUG_ON(random_data_len > 32) here?

I suppose we do. I'll add it. I didn't have this originally because
there are really only same-file callers which are careful, and the
compiler can't optimize it out. But maybe that carefulness won't be
there in the future, so seems like a good idea to add it.

> > + memset(&chacha_state[12], 0, sizeof(u32) * 4);
>
> No IV, no generation counter here? As you already have a generation counter
> in use for other purposes, why not use it here as well as some non-zero
> starting point?

No. The "fast key erasure" proposal sets the nonce to zero and sets
the counter from zero, so I'd like to do the same, and leave the nonce
field available for some other interesting use in the future. For
example, setting the nonce to smp_processor_id() if we do future
interesting things with lockfree algorithms. For now we have already a
256-bit key which is more than sufficient.

By the way, if https://blog.cr.yp.to/20170723-random.html (the
original fast key erasure rng description) is a wall of text that's
not too appealing, you can read Dan's implementation of it in
supercop, which is remarkably simple:
https://github.com/jedisct1/supercop/blob/master/crypto_rng/chacha20/ref/rng.c
. You'll notice the new code in this commit isn't too far from there.

Jason