This commit is contained in:
Damien Miller 2000-10-25 14:47:35 +11:00
parent 6f9c337401
commit df1b6452ee

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@ -12,16 +12,14 @@ A particularly pernicious problem arises with DSA keys (used by the
ssh2 protocol). Performing a DSA signature (which is required for
authentication), entails the use of a 160 bit random number. If an
attacker can predict this number, then they can deduce your *private*
key and impersonate you.
key and impersonate you or your hosts.
If you are using the builtin random number support (configure will
tell you if this is the case), then read this document in its entirety
and consider disabling ssh2 support (by adding "Protocol 1" to
sshd_config and ssh_config).
tell you if this is the case), then read this document in its entirety.
Please also request that your OS vendor provides a kernel-based random
number collector (/dev/random) in future versions of your operating
systems.
systems by default.
On to the description...
@ -40,9 +38,10 @@ the specified program.
The random number code will also read and save a seed file to
~/.ssh/prng_seed. This contents of this file are added to the random
number generator at startup.
number generator at startup. The goal here is to maintain as much
randomness between sessions as possible.
This approach presents two problems:
The entropy collection code has two main problems:
1. It is slow.