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    drivers/net: Remove IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM flag from network drivers · ab392d2d
    Javier Martinez Canillas authored
    
    
    The IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM flag is marked as deprecated and will be removed.
    
    Every input point to the kernel's entropy pool have to better document the
    type of entropy source it is.
    
    drivers/char/random.c now implements a set of interfaces that can be used for
    devices to collect enviromental noise. IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM will be replaced
    with these add_*_randomness exported functions.
    
    Network drivers are not a good source of entropy. They use as a source of
    entropy essentially a remote host. Which means that the source of entropy can
    be potentially controlled by an attacker. Also, with heavy workloads the
    entropy decreases due to less hardware interrupts happening thanks to irq
    mitigation and NAPI.
    
    If a system relies in its network interface as a entropy source it has a false
    sense of security. Systems that don't have devices whose drivers are good
    sources of entropy, should either use a hardware random number generator or
    feed the kernel's entropy pool from userspace using other sources of entropy
    such as EGD, video_entropyd, timer_entropyd and audio-entropyd.
    
    Signed-off-by: default avatarJavier Martinez Canillas <martinez.javier@gmail.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDavid S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
    ab392d2d