3 ms·
I bought a TrueRNG v3 [0] a month or so ago and have been using it with rngd / rng-tools. I wish rngd was easier to use with multiple entropy sources, however.
by jlgaddis 10y ago
I bought a TrueRNG v3 [0] a month or so ago and have been using it with rngd / rng-tools.
I wish rngd was easier to use with multiple entropy sources, however. Even w/ RDRAND (times two -- dual CPUs), a TPM, and the TrueRNG, it's difficult to (easily) tell which of these are being used and/or if more than one is being used.
Ideally, I'd like to be able to tell rngd to use/mix the TrueRNG, RDRAND in both CPUs, the TPM, and any other entropy sources I may come up with, such as RTL-SDRs doing funky things [1]. I suppose I could just run multiple instances of rngd, though.
Anyway, I've switched to just using /dev/random for pretty much everything (where it can be configured) since, with the TrueRNG, it never blocks on me now.
[0]: http://ubld.it/truerng_v3 http://ubld.it/truerng_v3
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=rtl-str+entropy https://www.google.com/search?q=rtl-str+entropy
- tptacek 10y agoWhy would you do this? What problem is a USB hardware RNG solving for you?
- jlgaddis 10y agoIn this particular case, I'm evaluating it on my workstation. The intended use, however, is for an offline, headless machine (that is normally powered off) that is used to generate cryptographic keys. Do I absolutely require it? Probably not. For $50, though, I thought "might as well try it".
- tptacek 10y agoI would recommend you not do this.
- notfed 10y agoWhat I did instead was switch to /dev/urandom, which never blocks either.
- pvg 10y agoThese 'running out of entropy' graphs are not exactly a reassurance these people are interested in your security as much as in selling you something.