Zack's Kernel News
Zack's Kernel News
This month in Kernel News: Opening a Random Can of Worms and Out with the Old.
Opening a Random Can of Worms
Torsten Duwe was mad as hell, and he wasn't going to take it anymore! Or at least, he had certain objections to /dev/random, which he felt should be addressed. In particular, one of the main points of random numbers in the Linux kernel is to support system security. Torsten pointed out that "Input entropy amounts are guesstimated in advance, obviously much too conservatively, compiled in and never checked thereafter; the whitening is done using some home-grown hash function derivative and other non-cryptographic, non-standard operations."
He also remarked with restraint and decorum, that "meanwhile there's quite a maintenance backlog; minor fixes are pending, medium-sized cleanups are ignored and major patch sets to add the missing features are not even discussed."
Torsten said he was in favor of bringing the Linux kernel up to some sort of standards compliance with regards to random numbers, preferably obtaining official certification from one of the organizations that did that sort of thing. But he said he'd settle for /dev/random simply being a reliable source of entropy, even without any certification.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.