Re: [RFC PATCH] drivers/char/random.c: Is reducing locking range like this safe?

From: Theodore Ts'o
Date: Sun Jun 08 2014 - 21:36:34 EST


On Sun, Jun 08, 2014 at 08:05:24PM -0400, George Spelvin wrote:
>
> The problem I started trying to solve is readers (entropy extractors)
> monopolizing the pool lock and stalling writers (entropy mixers), which
> are supposed to be fast and low overhead.

Which writer are you worried about, specifically? A userspace write
to /dev/random from rgnd?

And have you measured this to be something significant, or is this a
theoretical concern. If you've measured it, what's the conditions
where this is stalling an entropy mixer a significant amount of time?

- Ted
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/