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authorjirka-h <hladky.jiri@gmail.com>2021-03-22 03:08:42 +0100
committerGitHub <noreply@github.com>2021-03-22 03:08:42 +0100
commit297bdf1fc52fc6f59d0495f911d4e594b4d29190 (patch)
tree84b8bcbfff70a1418044c5e76f831530f4061d07
parentMerge pull request #59 from pseiderer/ps-devel-fix-uclibc-compile-001 (diff)
downloadhaveged-297bdf1fc52fc6f59d0495f911d4e594b4d29190.tar.xz
haveged-297bdf1fc52fc6f59d0495f911d4e594b4d29190.zip
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Haveged, an entropy source
+IMPORTANT UPDATE
+
+Starting from Linux kernel v5.6, the HAVEGED **service** has become obsolete. The userspace application as well as the haveged library are not affected. There are two main reasons for that:
+
+1) The mainline Linux Kernel has now HAVEGED algorithm build in internally, see the [LKML article.]( https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/alpine.DEB.2.21.1909290010500.2636@nanos.tec.linutronix.de/T/)
+
+2) Furthermore, as soon as the CRNG (the Linux cryptographic-strength random number generator) gets ready, `/dev/random` does not block on reads anymore. See the [kernel commit.](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/30c08efec8884fb106b8e57094baa51bb4c44e32)
+
+I'm happy that these changes made it into the mainline kernel. It's nice to see that the main idea behind HAVEGED has sustained time test- it was published already in 2003 [here.](https://www.irisa.fr/caps/projects/hipsor/publications/havege-tomacs.pdf)
+
+I'm also glad that the HAVEGE algorithm is being further explored and examined - see the [CPU Jitter Random Number Generator.](https://www.chronox.de/jent.html)
+
+I will keep maintaining HAVEGED - there are a couple of reasons for that:
+* Most Linux installations are still running on the older kernel versions. 
+* HAVEGED can also be used as the userspace RNG to generate random numbers. See `man -S8 haveged` for examples or try running `haveged -n 0 | pv > /dev/null`
+* Last but not least, HAVEGED can be used as the RNG library. 
+
INTRODUCTION
Complete documentation on haveged can be found at http://www.issihosts.com/haveged/