Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 15 May 2008 18:42:06 -0400 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] drivers/net: remove network drivers' last few uses of IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM |
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Brandeburg, Jesse wrote: > we've been hearing rumblings of big customers wanting (maybe requiring) > wired network drivers from Intel to advertise this flag. Jeff have you > heard of such? > > I think the argument is that a headless system (no keyboard/mouse, no > soundcard, probably no video) with a libata based driver and a network > driver without IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM has *no* sources of entropy. In this > case the argument is very strong for at least *some* source of entropy > from interrupts so that randomness can get some external input. Just > try rebuilding a kernel RPM over an ssh session and you'll see what I > mean. > > In short, I agree with Alan's IRQF_SAMPLE_DUBIOUS, and know of Linux > customers who also want the same.
So I guess a good message for customers might be:
Don't depend on an entropy source whose volume decreases as workload and network traffic increase.
Jeff
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