NAME¶
rndtest
—
FIPS 140-2 random number generator test monitor
DESCRIPTION¶
The rndtest
driver “hooks up” to hardware
crypto devices to monitor the entropy data passed to the
random(4) subsystem. This data is periodically tested for
FIPS 140-2 compliance and statistics are collected. If the harvested entropy
fails any of the FIPS test suite, then it is discarded and testing is
continuously applied until “good data” is received from the
device. Failures are optionally reported on the console.
HISTORY¶
The idea for this and the original code came from Jason L.
Wright. The rndtest
device driver first
appeared in FreeBSD 5.0.
BUGS¶
Crypto device drivers must be compiled specially to make use of this driver;
this should not be necessary. This feature might better be integrated into the
random(4) subsystem where it can be applied to devices that
claim to supply “pure entropy”.