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97 lines
4.2 KiB
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97 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
This document contains a description of portable OpenSSH's random
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number collection code. An alternate reading of this text could
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well be titled "Why I should pressure my system vendor to supply
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/dev/random in their OS".
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Why is this important? OpenSSH depends on good, unpredictable numbers
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for generating keys, performing digital signatures and forming
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cryptographic challenges. If the random numbers that it uses are
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predictable, then the strength of the whole system is compromised.
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A particularly pernicious problem arises with DSA keys (used by the
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ssh2 protocol). Performing a DSA signature (which is required for
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authentication), entails the use of a 160 bit random number. If an
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attacker can predict this number, then they can deduce your *private*
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key and impersonate you or your hosts.
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If you are using the builtin random number support (configure will
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tell you if this is the case), then read this document in its entirety.
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Alternately, you can use Lutz Jaenicke's PRNGd - a small daemon which
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collects random numbers and makes them available by a socket.
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Please also request that your OS vendor provides a kernel-based random
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number collector (/dev/random) in future versions of your operating
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systems by default.
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On to the description...
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The portable OpenSSH contains random number collection support for
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systems which lack a kernel entropy pool (/dev/random).
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This collector (as of 3.1 and beyond) comes as an external application
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that allows the local admin to decide on how to implement entropy
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collection.
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The default entropy collector operates by executing the programs listed
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in ($etcdir)/ssh_prng_cmds, reading their output and adding it to the
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PRNG supplied by OpenSSL (which is hash-based). It also stirs in the
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output of several system calls and timings from the execution of the
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programs that it runs.
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The ssh_prng_cmds file also specifies a 'rate' for each program. This
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represents the number of bits of randomness per byte of output from
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the specified program.
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The random number code will also read and save a seed file to
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~/.ssh/prng_seed. This contents of this file are added to the random
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number generator at startup. The goal here is to maintain as much
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randomness between sessions as possible.
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The default entropy collection code has two main problems:
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1. It is slow.
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Executing each program in the list can take a large amount of time,
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especially on slower machines. Additionally some program can take a
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disproportionate time to execute.
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Tuning the default entropy collection code is difficult at this point.
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It requires doing 'times ./ssh-rand-helper' and modifying the
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($etcdir)/ssh_prng_cmds until you have found the issue. In the next
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release we will be looking at support '-v' for verbose output to allow
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easier debugging.
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The default entropy collector will timeout programs which take too long
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to execute, the actual timeout used can be adjusted with the
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--with-entropy-timeout configure option. OpenSSH will not try to
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re-execute programs which have not been found, have had a non-zero
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exit status or have timed out more than a couple of times.
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2. Estimating the real 'rate' of program outputs is non-trivial
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The shear volume of the task is problematic: there are currently
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around 50 commands in the ssh_prng_cmds list, portable OpenSSH
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supports at least 12 different OSs. That is already 600 sets of data
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to be analysed, without taking into account the numerous differences
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between versions of each OS.
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On top of this, the different commands can produce varying amounts of
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usable data depending on how busy the machine is, how long it has been
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up and various other factors.
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To make matters even more complex, some of the commands are reporting
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largely the same data as other commands (eg. the various "ps" calls).
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How to avoid the default entropy code?
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The best way is to read the OpenSSL documentation and recompile OpenSSL
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to use prngd or egd. Some platforms (like earily solaris) have 3rd
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party /dev/random devices that can be also used for this task.
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If you are forced to use ssh-rand-helper consider still downloading
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prngd/egd and configure OpenSSH using --with-prngd-port=xx or
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--with-prngd-socket=xx (refer to INSTALL for more information).
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$Id: WARNING.RNG,v 1.5 2002/04/14 13:16:05 djm Exp $
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