Re: [PATCH] random: seed random_int_secret at least poorly at core_initcall time

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 02:46:03PM +0100, Hannes Frederic Sowa wrote:

quoted

It is needed by fork to set up the stack canary. And this actually gets
called before the secret is initialized.

Maybe we could use this for the time being and use the seeding method
of kaslr as soon as it hits the tree?

Hmm, from what I can tell even early_initcall() is going to be early
enough.  The stack canary is set up by boot_init_stack_canary(), which
is run very, very early in start_kerne() --- way before
early_initcalls, or even before interrupts are enabled.  So adding
random_int_secret_init_early() as a core_initcall is still too late.

I wonder if we need to do something in common with what Kees has been
considering for the kaslr code, since it's a similar issue --- we need
random number way earlier than we can really afford to initialize
/dev/random.

						- Ted

P.S.  Unless I'm missing something (and I hope I am), it would appear
that the stack canary is going to easily predictable by an attacker on
non-x86 platforms that don't have RDRAND.  Has someone tested whether
or not the stack canary isn't constant across ARM or pre-Sandy Bridge
x86 systems?

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in
the body of a message to majordomo-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html