Problem with random.c and PPC
Hi Andreas !!!
You've got the point. My system is diskless, keyboardless and mouseless therefore I will never get randomness without the patch you talked about.
BTW, does anyone know where I can found the patch to get randomness from the network cards interrupt ?
regards
Henrique
Quoted 17 lines · Andreas Dilger
Quoted 7 lines · henrique
Hello !!!
I am trying to use a program (ipsec newhostkey) that uses the random device provided by the linux-kernel. In a x86 machine the program works fine but when I tried to run the program in a PPC machine it doesn't work.
Quoted 8 lines
Looking carefully I have discovered that the problem is in the driver
random.c. When the program tries to read any amount of data it locks and never returns. It happens because the variable "random_state->entropy_count" is always zero, that is, any random number is generated at all !!!??.Does anyone know anything about this problem ? Any sort of help is very welcomed.
Quoted 7 lines
Maybe the PPC keyboard/mouse drivers do not add randomness? You should also get randomness from disk I/O. If your PPC system is diskless, mouseless, and keyboardless, there is also a patch for 2.4 which allows you to get randomness from network card interrupts, which is good enough for all but the most incredibly paranoid people.
Cheers, Andreas
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Signature · 5 lines
--- Henrique Gobbi Software Engineer +55 11 50333339 Cyclades Corporation - The Leader in Linux Connectivity