Re: Linux messages full of `random: get_random_u32 called from`

[Sultan Alsawaf]

On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 08:11:07PM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
>
> What your patch does is assume that there is a full bit of uncertainty
> that can be obtained from the information gathered from each
> interrupt.  I *might* be willing to assume that to be valid on x86
> systems that have a high resolution cycle counter.  But on ARM
> platforms, especially during system bootup when the user isn't typing
> anything and SSD's and flash storage tend to have very predictable
> timing patterns?  Not a bet I'd be willing to take.  Even with a cycle
> counter, there's a reason why we assumed that we need to mix in timing
> results from 64 interrupts or one second's worth before we would give
> a single bit's worth of entropy credit.
> 
> 							- Ted

What about abusing high-resolution timers to get entropy? Since hrtimers can't
make guarantees down to the nanosecond, there's always a skew between the
requested expiry time and the actual expiry time.

Please see the attached patch and let me know just how horrible it is.

Sultan