• Stephan Mueller's avatar
    crypto: algif_rng - add random number generator support · 5afdfd22
    Stephan Mueller authored
    This patch adds the random number generator support for AF_ALG.
    
    A random number generator's purpose is to generate data without
    requiring the caller to provide any data. Therefore, the AF_ALG
    interface handler for RNGs only implements a callback handler for
    recvmsg.
    
    The following parameters provided with a recvmsg are processed by the
    RNG callback handler:
    
    	* sock - to resolve the RNG context data structure accessing the
    	  RNG instance private to the socket
    
    	* len - this parameter allows userspace callers to specify how
    	  many random bytes the RNG shall produce and return. As the
    	  kernel context for the RNG allocates a buffer of 128 bytes to
    	  store random numbers before copying them to userspace, the len
    	  parameter is checked that it is not larger than 128. If a
    	  caller wants more random numbers, a new request for recvmsg
    	  shall be made.
    
    The size of 128 bytes is chose because of the following considerations:
    
    	* to increase the memory footprint of the kernel too much (note,
    	  that would be 128 bytes per open socket)
    
    	* 128 is divisible by any typical cryptographic block size an
    	  RNG may have
    
    	* A request for random numbers typically only shall supply small
    	  amount of data like for keys or IVs that should only require
    	  one invocation of the recvmsg function.
    
    Note, during instantiation of the RNG, the code checks whether the RNG
    implementation requires seeding. If so, the RNG is seeded with output
    from get_random_bytes.
    
    A fully working example using all aspects of the RNG interface is
    provided at http://www.chronox.de/libkcapi.htmlSigned-off-by: default avatarStephan Mueller <smueller@chronox.de>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarHerbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
    5afdfd22
algif_rng.c 5.27 KB