From ab392d2d6d4e2e50502985eead545b44ee58802c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Javier Martinez Canillas Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:27:31 +0000 Subject: drivers/net: Remove IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM flag from network drivers 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: Javier Martinez Canillas Signed-off-by: David S. Miller --- drivers/net/netxen/netxen_nic_main.c | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) (limited to 'drivers/net/netxen') diff --git a/drivers/net/netxen/netxen_nic_main.c b/drivers/net/netxen/netxen_nic_main.c index 83348dc4b184..933671556c15 100644 --- a/drivers/net/netxen/netxen_nic_main.c +++ b/drivers/net/netxen/netxen_nic_main.c @@ -905,7 +905,7 @@ netxen_nic_request_irq(struct netxen_adapter *adapter) struct nx_host_sds_ring *sds_ring; int err, ring; - unsigned long flags = IRQF_SAMPLE_RANDOM; + unsigned long flags = 0; struct net_device *netdev = adapter->netdev; struct netxen_recv_context *recv_ctx = &adapter->recv_ctx; -- cgit v1.2.3