linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 00/11] random: code cleanups

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Message-ID: <20131113042303.GY8043@ringworld.MIT.EDU>
Date:	Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:23:03 -0500
From:	Greg Price <price@....EDU>
To:	"Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/11] random: code cleanups

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 10:32:05PM -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> One of the things I've been thinking about with respect to making
> /dev/urandom block is being able to configure (via a module parameter
> which could be specified on the boot command line) which allows us to
> set a limit for how long /dev/urandom will block after which we log a
> high priority message that there was an attempt to read from
> /dev/urandom which couldn't be satisified, and then allowing the
> /dev/urandom read to succed.
> 
> The basic idea is that we don't want to break systems, but we do want
> to gently coerce people to do the right thing.  Otherwise, I'm worried
> that distros, or embedded/mobile/consume electronics engineers would
> just patch out the check.

That's a good idea.  I've worried about the same thing, but hadn't
thought of that solution.

Greg
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