path: root/drivers/char/random.c

/*
 * random.c -- A strong random number generator
 *
 * Copyright Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>, 2003, 2004, 2005
 *
 * Copyright Theodore Ts'o, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999.  All
 * rights reserved.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
 * are met:
 * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
 *    notice, and the entire permission notice in its entirety,
 *    including the disclaimer of warranties.
 * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 *    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote
 *    products derived from this software without specific prior
 *    written permission.
 *
 * ALTERNATIVELY, this product may be distributed under the terms of
 * the GNU General Public License, in which case the provisions of the GPL are
 * required INSTEAD OF the above restrictions.  (This clause is
 * necessary due to a potential bad interaction between the GPL and
 * the restrictions contained in a BSD-style copyright.)
 *
 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
 * WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
 * OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ALL OF
 * WHICH ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE
 * LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
 * CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT
 * OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR
 * BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
 * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
 * (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE
 * USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF NOT ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
 * DAMAGE.
 */

/*
 * (now, with legal B.S. out of the way.....)
 *
 * This routine gathers environmental noise from device drivers, etc.,
 * and returns good random numbers, suitable for cryptographic use.
 * Besides the obvious cryptographic uses, these numbers are also good
 * for seeding TCP sequence numbers, and other places where it is
 * desirable to have numbers which are not only random, but hard to
 * predict by an attacker.
 *
 * Theory of operation
 * ===================
 *
 * Computers are very predictable devices.  Hence it is extremely hard
 * to produce truly random numbers on a computer --- as opposed to
 * pseudo-random numbers, which can easily generated by using a
 * algorithm.  Unfortunately, it is very easy for attackers to guess
 * the sequence of pseudo-random number generators, and for some
 * applications this is not acceptable.  So instead, we must try to
 * gather "environmental noise" from the computer's environment, which
 * must be hard for outside attackers to observe, and use that to
 * generate random numbers.  In a Unix environment, this is best done
 * from inside the kernel.
 *
 * Sources of randomness from the environment include inter-keyboard
 * timings, inter-interrupt timings from some interrupts, and other
 * events which are both (a) non-deterministic and (b) hard for an
 * outside observer to measure.  Randomness from these sources are
 * added to an "entropy pool", which is mixed using a CRC-like function.
 * This is not cryptographically strong, but it is adequate assuming
 * the randomness is not chosen maliciously, and it is fast enough that
 * the overhead of doing it on every interrupt is very reasonable.
 * As random bytes are mixed into the entropy pool, the routines keep
 * an *estimate* of how many bits of randomness have been stored into
 * the random number generator's internal state.
 *
 * When random bytes are desired, they are obtained by taking the SHA
 * hash of the contents of the "entropy pool".  The SHA hash avoids
 * exposing the internal state of the entropy pool.  It is believed to
 * be computationally infeasible to derive any useful information
 * about the input of SHA from its output.  Even if it is possible to
 * analyze SHA in some clever way, as long as the amount of data
 * returned from the generator is less than the inherent entropy in
 * the pool, the output data is totally unpredictable.  For this
 * reason, the routine decreases its internal estimate of how many
 * bits of "true randomness" are contained in the entropy pool as it
 * outputs random numbers.
 *
 * If this estimate goes to zero, the routine can still generate
 * random numbers; however, an attacker may (at least in theory) be
 * able to infer the future output of the generator from prior
 * outputs.  This requires successful cryptanalysis of SHA, which is
 * not believed to be feasible, but there is a remote possibility.
 * Nonetheless, these numbers should be useful for the vast majority
 * of purposes.
 *
 * Exported interfaces ---- output
 * ===============================
 *
 * There are three exported interfaces; the first is one designed to
 * be used from within the kernel:
 *
 * 	void get_random_bytes(void *buf, int nbytes);
 *
 * This interface will return the requested number of random bytes,
 * and place it in the requested buffer.
 *
 * The two other interfaces are two character devices /dev/random and
 * /dev/urandom.  /dev/random is suitable for use when very high
 * quality randomness is desired (for example, for key generation or
 * one-time pads), as it will only return a maximum of the number of
 * bits of randomness (as estimated by the random number generator)
 * contained in the entropy pool.
 *
 * The /dev/urandom device does not have this limit, and will return
 * as many bytes as are requested.  As more and more random bytes are
 * requested without giving time for the entropy pool to recharge,
 * this will result in random numbers that are merely cryptographically
 * strong.  For many applications, however, this is acceptable.
 *
 * Exported interfaces ---- input
 * ==============================
 *
 * The current exported interfaces for gathering environmental noise
 * from the devices are:
 *
 * 	void add_input_randomness(unsigned int type, unsigned int code,
 *                                unsigned int value);
 * 	void add_interrupt_randomness(int irq);
 * 	void add_disk_randomness(struct gendisk *disk);
 *
 * add_input_randomness() uses the input layer interrupt timing, as well as
 * the event type information from the hardware.
 *
 * add_interrupt_randomness() uses the inter-interrupt timing as random
 * inputs to the entropy pool.  Note that not all interrupts are good
 * sources of randomness!  For example, the timer interrupts is not a
 * good choice, because the periodicity of the interrupts is too
 * regular, and hence predictable to an attacker.  Network Interface
 *