Re: [PATCH 07/12] random: use the arch-specific rng inxfer_secondary_pool

From: Theodore Ts'o
Date: Sat Jul 07 2012 - 21:42:18 EST


On Sun, Jul 08, 2012 at 02:06:46AM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
>
> Surely the number of random bytes being added is i * sizeof(long), not
> sizeof(u.hwrand)?
>

Meh; Kees Cook has made the same observation. Basically, in the
unlikely case where RDRAND fails, we'll end up mixing in stack
garbage. It's not a security vulnerability, since the contents of the
entropy pool never gets exposed. In fact, one could argue that mixing
in some unknown garbage from the kernel stack might actually help a
little; but it can't hurt.

- Ted
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/