Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes

[Oliver Neukum]

> > 1. You create a problem for in kernel users of random numbers.
> > 2. You forgo the benefit of randomness by concurrent access to
> > /dev/urandom 3. You will not benefit from hardware random number
> > generators as easily.
>
> You lost me. The kernel of course has "client" access to the internal
> pool. And since the userspace reads from /dev/random, it benefits

The kernel users of random numbers may be unable to block.
Thus the kernel has to have a PRNG anyway.
You may as well export it.

> from HRNG just the same way it does now. Point 2 is somewhat obscure
> to me. The kernel has only one observer to deal with, in theory.

In theory. In practice what goes out through eg. the network is
most important. Additional accesses to a PRNG bitstream unknown
outside make it harder to predict the bitstream.

	Regards
		Oliver