linux-ext4 - Re: Random corruption test for e2fsck

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:19:38 -0600
From:	Andreas Dilger <adilger@...sterfs.com>
To:	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>
Cc:	Kalpak Shah <kalpak@...sterfs.com>,
	linux-ext4 <linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org>,
	TheodoreTso <tytso@....edu>
Subject: Re: Random corruption test for e2fsck

On Jul 11, 2007  17:20 +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
> If you use a normal pseudo random number generator and print the seed
> (e.g. create from the time) initially the image can be easily recreated 
> later without shipping it around. /dev/urandom
> is not really needed for this since you don't need cryptographic
> strength randomness. Besides urandom data is precious and it's 
> a pity to use it up needlessly.
> 
> bash has $RANDOM built in for this purpose.

Except it is a lot more efficient and easy to do
"dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1k ..." than to spin in a loop getting 16-bit
random numbers from bash.  We would also be at the mercy of the shell
being identical on the user and debugger's systems.

I don't think that running this test once in a blue moon on some
system is going to be a source of problems.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
Principal Software Engineer
Cluster File Systems, Inc.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html