[OneRNG-Discuss] Debian 12 kernel ignoring entropy from OneRNG?

[Tom Yates]

On Thu, 14 Mar 2024, Jim Cheetham wrote:

> I'd be interested to know what kernel you were using on the Centos 7 
> machine - I think they only went up to something like 3.1.

3.10.0, since you ask; but i'd agree that several oceans of work have 
flowed under the kernel's bridge since then.

> So I expect your key is working just fine, sending data to rngd; and 
> rngd is writing into /dev/random like it used to do - but the kernel is 
> ignoring it

Yes, that's what I'd suspected, too.

> and the measurement you used to rely on is no longer meaningful. Much of 
> the information published (& indexed) on the Internet still seems to be 
> out-of-date, as the Arch documentation mentions: 
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Random_number_generation

That was the bit of information I was missing, and thank you very much 
indeed for it.  The specific note that the old measurement is now 
pointless is particularly valuable.

I have to visit that server again soon, to replace the HDDs; I will at 
that time remove my treasured OneRNG.  I may bring it home, and frame it 
for my office wall, as a memento of when the internet was made a tiny bit 
safer by it and it's brethren :)


-- 

       Tom Yates  -  https://www.teaparty.net