Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] x86/coco: Require seeding RNG with RDRAND on CoCo systems

[Jason A. Donenfeld]

Hi Elena,

On Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 8:57 AM Reshetova, Elena
<elena.reshetova@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> So, yes, coco_random_init() happens first, which actually now has a nice
> side-effect that on coco platforms we drop HW CPU output even earlier
> in the entropy pool (Yay!).
> Which at this point would be almost perfect, *if* we could also
> count this entropy drop and allow ChaCha seeding to benefit straight from
> this early drop of entropy.

I addressed this already in my last reply. I wouldn't get too hung up
on the entropy counting stuff. The RNG is going to get initialized
just fine anyway no matter what, and whether or not it's counted,
it'll still be used and available basically immediately anyway.

> How about changing this to use add_hwgenerator_randomness()?

That function is only for the hwrng API. It handles sleep semantics
and that's specific to that interface boundary. It is not for random
drivers and platforms to call directory.

> And adjust cc_random_init() to try rdseed first and only fallback to rdrand
> if it fails?

I guess that's possible, but what even is the point? I don't think
that really more directly accomplishes the objective here anyway. The
whole idea is we want to ensure that RDRAND is at least working for 32
bytes and if not panic. That's *all* we care about. Later on the RNG
will eat rdseed opportunistically as it can; let it handle that as it
does, and leave this patch here to be simple and direct and accomplish
the one single solitary goal of panicking if it can't avoid the worst
case scenario.

Jason