Re: [dsfjdssdfsd] getentropy(2)

[Benjamin Kaduk <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, Theodore Ts'o wrote:

> But if we get all applications to use the same library, we can
> abstract away not only differences in operating system but also
> security policies vis-a-vis DRBG/NDRBG blocking/nonblocking.  So what
> *I* would prefer is a library interface where the application declares
> what it wants the random numbers for:
>
> * Monte carlo simulations
> * Padding
> * IV
> * Session key
> * long-term key
>
[...]
>
> Basically, I don't want to leave this choice up to the application
> writer, since many application writers won't be competent to make this
> choice, and having consistency across different applications which are
> conform to the organization's designated security officer seems to be
> something that at least some organizations would want.

I'm not confident that [all] application writers will even be competent to 
correctly choose amongst the 5 listed uses [plus whatever others might be 
added].  If it stays a small number of easily identified things, it might 
still be better than only exposing the blocking/nonblocking-ness directly, 
but it doesn't seem clear-cut to me.

BTW, FreeBSD exposes a sysctl MIB (CTL_KERN.KERN_ARND) to get entropy 
directly, saving syscalls over open("/dev/[u]random")/read()/close().

-Ben