Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 17 Aug 2002 20:08:36 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes |
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On Sat, 17 Aug 2002, Oliver Xymoron wrote: > > Let me clarify that 2-5 orders thing. The kernel trusts about 10 times > as many samples as it should, and overestimates each samples' entropy > by about a factor of 10 (on x86 with TSC) or 1.3 (using 1kHz jiffies).
Lookin gat the code, your _new_ code just throws samples away _entirely_ just because some random event hasn't happened (the first thing I noticed was the context switch testing, there may be others there that I just didn't react to).
In short, you seem to cut those random events to _zero_. And this happens under what seems to be perfectly realistic loads. That's not trying to fix things, that's just breaking them.
> The patches will be a nuisance for anyone who's currently using > /dev/random to generate session keys on busy SSL servers.
No, it appears to be a nuisanse even for people who have real issues, ie just generating _occasional_ numbers on machines that just don't happen to run much user space programs.
Linus
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