Re: /dev/random often empty

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 07:29:49 -0400
Greg Troxel <gdt%ir.bbn.com@localhost> wrote:

> I have a netbsd-4 xen2 domU (on xen2 dom0), and /dev/random is usually
> nearly emtpy:
> 

...

> So, fairly clearly domU is an entropy-poor environment.  But servers
> need random bits.  Does anyone have thoughts about how to deal with
> this?  Should there be a xen random source pseudodevice providing bits
> from dom0?
> 
I've noticed similar problems.  I wonder if there should be a
pseudo-device which draws entropy from the dom0.  (Dom0 has an emulated
crypto device, but from the man page it doesn't include a random number
generator.)



                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb