[Whonix-devel] PRNGD questions

Sun Feb 2 12:51:18 CET 2020

Hello,

long time not thought about the project.

On 01.02.20 14:43, Patrick Schleizer wrote:
> Does use of PRNGD still make sense nowadays on Linux with /dev/random?
> You might say, /dev/random provides good entropy. Right. However, we are
> looking for additional sources of entropy. For that purpose we are using
> haveged and jitterentropy_rng but wouldn't like to add add additional
> sources. Ideally those not reliant on the CPU.

TPMs or other secure elements normally contain strong random number
generators.

Having this said, I have been working in the embedded area in the last
years (decades!?) and within which gathering entropy with stock PRNGD
would not have worked either

> Can PRNGD output a stream of random output on the console? If yes, we
> could invent a simple wrapper around it and redirect/write it to
> /dev/random?

No, it can not. It provides an EGD compatible interface that you could
however query with a respective client.

Or you can just modify PRNGD.

> (I don't worry about updating the entropy counters using RNDADDENTROPY.
> Thanks to haveged and jitterentropy_rng these counters are always very
> high anyhow with no observed case of /dev/random starvation ever yet.
> The main point here is to improve entropy quality in case other sources
> are later found out to be less random than anticipated. Performance
> isn't a concern here.)
>
> Trying to verify PRNGD.
>
> gpg --verify prngd-0.9.9.tar.gz.sig
> gpg: keybox '/home/user/.gnupg/pubring.kbx' created
> gpg: assuming signed data in 'prngd-0.9.9.tar.gz'
> gpg: Signature made Mon 26 Feb 2001 12:20:08 PM EST
> gpg:                using RSA key 78993B149C58A66D
> gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

Hmm. I have not been using the key for many years and pgp as well and it
seems that the old key and newer versions of the software do not go well
together.

From http://keys2.kfwebs.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x78993b149c58a66d
I have hence downloaded the respective public key myself (attached) but
could not verify the file myself. I am getting rusty...

> Could you please let me know where to acquire key 78993B149C58A66D since
> keyservers are unreliable nowadays.
>
> cc'd whonix-devel public mailing list so all our readers can benefit
> from you reply.

Best regards,

Lutz

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