Re: CONFIG_RANDOM option for 1.99.2

Theodore Y. Ts'o (tytso@mit.edu)
Wed, 15 May 1996 18:47:53 -0400


Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 17:16:55 -0400
From: Robert L Krawitz <rlk@tiac.net>

What if someone's running in very tight memory (2-4 MB) and for one
reason or another doesn't care about crackers (isn't on the net, or
just doesn't care about security)? The only feasible thing that the
kernel needs good random numbers for is security, and people should
have the option to turn that off if the memory and CPU cycles are too
critical.

I agree with you in general, but the problem is that there are too many
tuning knobs already. Asking the user to go through a complicated list
of checklist items, which for typical usage will always be set in a
certain way, is just poor design. Especially since we're not even
testing most of the combinations of compilation options --- that's
combinatorically impossible right now.

- Ted