linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH, RFC] random: introduce getrandom(2) system call

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Date:	Thu, 17 Jul 2014 11:05:01 -0600
From:	Bob Beck <beck@...nbsd.org>
To:	"Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-abi <linux-abi@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-crypto <linux-crypto@...r.kernel.org>,
	Bob Beck <beck@...nbsd.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH, RFC] random: introduce getrandom(2) system call

Hi Ted, yeah I understand the reasoning, it would be good if there was
a way to influence the various libc people to
ensure they manage to provide a getentropy().


On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 11:01 AM, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 09:12:15AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 05:18:15AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
>> > The getrandom(2) system call was requested by the LibreSSL Portable
>> > developers.  It is analoguous to the getentropy(2) system call in
>> > OpenBSD.
>>
>> What's the reason to not implement exactly the same system call OpenBSD
>> does?  Having slightly different names and semantics for the same
>> functionality is highly annoying.
>
> The getrandom(2) system call is a superset of getentropy(2).  When we
> add the support for this into glibc, it won't be terribly difficult
> nor annoying to drop the following in alongside the standard support
> needed for any new system call:
>
> int getentropy(void *buf, size_t buflen)
> {
>         int     ret;
>
>         ret = getentropy(buf, buflen, 0);
>         return (ret > 0) ? 0 : ret;
> }
>
> The reason for the additional flags is that I'm trying to solve more
> problems than just getentropy()'s raison d'etre.  The discussion of
> this is in the commit description; let me know if there bits that I
> could make clearer.
>
> Cheers,
>
>                                         - Ted
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