Messages in this thread Patch in this message |  | | Date | Sun, 29 Apr 2018 15:26:25 -0700 | From | Sultan Alsawaf <> | Subject | Re: Linux messages full of `random: get_random_u32 called from` |
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On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 06:05:19PM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote: > It's more accurate to say that using /dev/urandom is no worse than > before (from a few years ago). There are, alas, plenty of > distributions and user space application programmers that basically > got lazy using /dev/urandom, and assumed that there would be plenty of > entropy during early system startup. > > When they switched over the getrandom(2), the most egregious examples > of this caused pain (and they got fixed), but due to a bug in > drivers/char/random.c, if getrandom(2) was called after the entropy > pool was "half initialized", it would not block, but proceed. > > Is that exploitable? Well, Jann and I didn't find an _obvious_ way to > exploit the short coming, which is this wasn't treated like an > emergency situation ala the embarassing situation we had five years > ago[1]. > > [1] https://factorable.net/paper.html > > However, it was enough to make us be uncomfortable, which is why I > pushed the changes that I did. At least on the devices we had at > hand, using the distributions that we typically use, the impact seemed > minimal. Unfortuantely, there is no way to know for sure without > rolling out change and seeing who screams. In the ideal world, > software would not require cryptographic randomness immediately after > boot, before the user logs in. And ***really***, as in [1], softwaret > should not be generating long-term public keys that are essential to > the security of the box a few seconds immediately after the device is > first unboxed and plugged in.i > > What would be useful is if people gave reports that listed exactly > what laptop and distributions they are using. Just "a high spec x86 > laptop" isn't terribly useful, because *my* brand-new Dell XPS 13 > running Debian testing is working just fine. The year, model, make, > and CPU type plus what distribution (and distro version number) you > are running is useful, so I can assess how wide spread the unhappiness > is going to be, and what mitigation steps make sense. > > > What mitigations steps can be taken? > > If you believe in security-through-complexity (the cache architecture > of x86 is *sooooo* complicated no one can understand it, so > Jitterentropy / Haveged *must* be secure), or security-through-secrecy > (the cache architecture of x86 is only avilable to internal architects > inside Intel, so Jitterentropy / Haveged *must* be secure, never mind > that the Intel CPU architects who were asked about it were "nervous"), > then wiring up CONFIG_JITTERENTROPY or using haveged might be one > approach. > > If you believe that Intel hasn't backdoored RDRAND, then installing > rng-tools and running rngd with --enable-drng will enable RDRAND. > That seems to be popular with various defense contractors, perhaps on > the assumption that if it _was_ backdoored (no one knows for sure), it > was probably with the connivance or request of the US government, who > doesn't need to worry about spying on itself. > > Or you can use some kind of open hardware design RNG, such as > ChoasKey[2] from Altus Metrum. But that requires using specially > ordered hardware plugged into a USB slot, and it's probably not a mass > solution. > > [2] https://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/ > > > Personally, I prefer fixing the software to simply not require > cryptographic grade entropy before the user has logged in. Because > it's better than the alternatives. > > - Ted >
The attached patch fixes my crng init woes. With it, crng init completes 0.86 seconds into boot, but I can't help but feel like a solution this obvious would just expose my Richard Stallman photo collection to prying eyes at the NSA.
Thoughts on the patch?
Sultan
From 597b0f2b3c986f853bf1d30a7fb9d76869e47fe8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Sultan Alsawaf <sultanxda@gmail.com> Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 15:22:59 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] random: remove ratelimiting from add_interrupt_randomness()
--- drivers/char/random.c | 7 ------- 1 file changed, 7 deletions(-)
diff --git a/drivers/char/random.c b/drivers/char/random.c index 38729baed6ee..5b38277b104a 100644 --- a/drivers/char/random.c +++ b/drivers/char/random.c @@ -574,7 +574,6 @@ static void mix_pool_bytes(struct entropy_store *r, const void *in, struct fast_pool { __u32 pool[4]; - unsigned long last; unsigned short reg_idx; unsigned char count; }; @@ -1195,20 +1194,14 @@ void add_interrupt_randomness(int irq, int irq_flags) crng_fast_load((char *) fast_pool->pool, sizeof(fast_pool->pool))) { fast_pool->count = 0; - fast_pool->last = now; } return; } - if ((fast_pool->count < 64) && - !time_after(now, fast_pool->last + HZ)) - return; - r = &input_pool; if (!spin_trylock(&r->lock)) return; - fast_pool->last = now; __mix_pool_bytes(r, &fast_pool->pool, sizeof(fast_pool->pool)); /* -- 2.14.1
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