linux-kernel - Re: drivers/char/random.c: More futzing about

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Date:	Wed, 11 Jun 2014 09:48:31 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...ux.intel.com>
To:	Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>, George Spelvin <linux@...izon.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, mingo@...nel.org, price@....edu
Subject: Re: drivers/char/random.c: More futzing about

On 06/11/2014 09:38 AM, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 09, 2014 at 09:17:38AM -0400, George Spelvin wrote:
>> Here's an example of a smaller, faster, and better fast_mix() function.
>> The mix is invertible (thus preserving entropy), but causes each input
>> bit or pair of bits to avalanche to at least 43 bits after 2 rounds and
>> 120 bit0 after 3.
> 
> I've been looking at your fast_mix2(), and it does look interesting.
> 
>> For comparison, with the current linear fast_mix function, bits above
>> the 12th in the data words only affect 4 other bits after one repetition.
>>
>> With 3 iterations, it runs in 2/3 the time of the current fast_mix
>> and is half the size: 84 bytes of object code as opposed to 168.
> 
> ... but how did you measure the "2/3 the time"?  I've done some
> measurements, using both "time calling fast_mix() and fast_mix2() N
> times and divide by N (where N needs to be quite large).  Using that
> metric, fast_mix2() takes seven times as long to run.
> 
> If I only run the two mixing functions once, and use RDTSC to measure
> the time, fast_mix2() takes only three times as long.  (That's because
> the memory cache effects are much less, which favors fast_mix2).
> 
> But either way, fast_mix2() is slower than the current fast_mix(), and
> using the measurements that are as advantageous (and most realistic)
> that I could come up with, it's still three times slower.
> 
> My measurements were done using Intel 2.8 GHz quad-core i7-4900MQ CPU.
> 

While talking about performance, I did a quick prototype of random using
Skein instead of SHA-1, and it was measurably faster, in part because
Skein produces more output per hash.

	-hpa


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