linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v4 2/6] random: Async and sync API for accessing kernel

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Message-ID: <CACXcFmm=axx6Pkwm1e-_U4CJYv9DT3f-j3MggH0KJTuQ7Ygm5w@mail.gmail.com>
Date:	Mon, 4 May 2015 06:22:04 -0400
From:	Sandy Harris <sandyinchina@...il.com>
To:	Stephan Mueller <smueller@...onox.de>
Cc:	Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>,
	Paul Bolle <pebolle@...cali.it>,
	Andreas Steffen <andreas.steffen@...ongswan.org>,
	"Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, linux-crypto@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 2/6] random: Async and sync API for accessing kernel_pool

On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 11:33 AM, Stephan Mueller <smueller@...onox.de> wrote:

> The kernel_pool is intended to be the in-kernel equivalent to the
> blocking_pool, i.e. requests for random data may be blocked if
> insufficient entropy is present.

I cannot see any reason this would be useful, let alone necessary.

Of course /dev/random should block and it seems to me there is a good
argument for making both /dev/urandom and get_random_bytes() block
until there is emough entropy to seed them well. For everything else,
though, a properly seeded PRNG seems adequate so there is no reason to
block.
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