random: initialize the last_time field in struct timer_rand_state

Since we initialize jiffies to wrap five minutes before boot (see INITIAL_JIFFIES defined in include/linux/jiffies.h) it's important to make sure the last_time field is initialized to INITIAL_JIFFIES. Otherwise, the entropy estimator will overestimate the amount of entropy resulting from the first call to add_timer_randomness(), generally by about 8 bits. Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <[email protected]>
chain78 · Nov 3, 2013 · 644008d · 644008d
1 parent ae9ecd9
commit 644008d
Showing 1 changed file with 6 additions and 2 deletions.
diff --git a/drivers/char/random.c b/drivers/char/random.c
@@ -724,6 +724,8 @@ struct timer_rand_state {
 	unsigned dont_count_entropy:1;
 };
 
+#define INIT_TIMER_RAND_STATE { INITIAL_JIFFIES, };
+
 /*
  * Add device- or boot-specific data to the input and nonblocking
  * pools to help initialize them to unique values.
@@ -750,7 +752,7 @@ void add_device_randomness(const void *buf, unsigned int size)
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(add_device_randomness);
 
-static struct timer_rand_state input_timer_state;
+static struct timer_rand_state input_timer_state = INIT_TIMER_RAND_STATE;
 
 /*
  * This function adds entropy to the entropy "pool" by using timing
@@ -1267,8 +1269,10 @@ void rand_initialize_disk(struct gendisk *disk)
 	 * source.
 	 */
 	state = kzalloc(sizeof(struct timer_rand_state), GFP_KERNEL);
-	if (state)
+	if (state) {
+		state->last_time = INITIAL_JIFFIES;
 		disk->random = state;
+	}
 }
 #endif