linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] random32: use real rng for non-deterministic randomness

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]

Message-ID: <Yn2wmb/McCbhNaTb@mit.edu>
Date:   Thu, 12 May 2022 21:12:57 -0400
From:   "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>
To:     "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@...c4.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-crypto@...r.kernel.org,
        netdev@...r.kernel.org, Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] random32: use real rng for non-deterministic randomness

On Wed, May 11, 2022 at 04:32:57PM +0200, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> random32.c has two RNGs in it: one that is meant to be used
> deterministically, with some predefined seed, and one that does the same
> exact thing as random.c, except does it poorly. The first one has some
> use cases. The second one no longer does and can be replaced with calls
> to random.c's proper random number generator.
> 
> The relatively recent siphash-based bad random32.c code was added in
> response to concerns that the prior random32.c was too deterministic.
> Out of fears that random.c was (at the time) too slow, this code was
> anonymously contributed by somebody who was likely reusing the alias of
> long time anonymous contributor George Spelvin. Then out of that emerged
> a kind of shadow entropy gathering system, with its own tentacles
> throughout various net code, added willy nilly.
> 
> Stop👏making👏crappy👏bespoke👏random👏number👏generators👏.
> 
> Fortunately, recently advances in random.c mean that we can stop playing
> with this sketchiness, and just use get_random_u32(), which is now fast
> enough. In micro benchmarks using RDPMC, I'm seeing the same median
> cycle count between the two functions, with the mean being _slightly_
> higher due to batches refilling (which we can optimize further need be).
> However, when doing *real* benchmarks of the net functions that actually
> use these random numbers, the mean cycles actually *decreased* slightly
> (with the median still staying the same), likely because the additional
> prandom code means icache misses and complexity, whereas random.c is
> generally already being used by something else nearby.
> 
> The biggest benefit of this is that there are many users of prandom who
> probably should be using cryptographically secure random numbers. This
> makes all of those accidental cases become secure by just flipping a
> switch. Later on, we can do a tree-wide cleanup to remove the static
> inline wrapper functions that this commit adds.
> 
> Cc: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>
> Cc: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>
> Signed-off-by: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@...c4.com>

Yay!

Acked-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>