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From: Patrick Simmons <linuxrocks123@netscape.net>
To: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: bhutchings@solarflare.com, netdev@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM Flag to forcedeth
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2010 21:23:01 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4CB13195.2070007@netscape.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20101009.201501.214209347.davem@davemloft.net>

On 10/09/10 21:15, David Miller wrote:
> From: Ben Hutchings<bhutchings@solarflare.com>
> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 02:09:24 +0100
>
>> Patrick Simmons wrote:
>>> This patch adds the IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM flag to the forcedeth driver,
>>> allowing the interrupt timing for forcedeth to be used for entropy
>>> generation.  This should help /dev/random generate more secure random
>>> numbers on machines using this driver.
>> [...]
>>
>> We don't enable this for network drivers any more because:
>>
>> 1. At high packet rates, interrupt moderation makes interrupts very
>> regular.
>> 2. At low packet rates, a malicious sender can control the interrupt
>> timing.
>
> Agreed on all counts, I'm not applying this patch.

It's enabled for other network drivers, which is where I got the idea 
from.  Has anyone actually done an experiment to see whether these two 
concerns are valid?

--Patrick

-- 
If I'm not here, I've gone out to find myself.  If I get back before I 
return, please keep me here.

  reply	other threads:[~2010-10-10  3:23 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2010-10-09 23:45 [PATCH] Add IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM Flag to forcedeth Patrick Simmons
2010-10-10  1:09 ` Ben Hutchings
2010-10-10  3:15   ` David Miller
2010-10-10  3:23     ` Patrick Simmons [this message]
2010-10-10  8:57       ` Eric Dumazet

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