the hardware RNG on a Raspberry Pi?

Posted Jan 8, 2020 1:05 UTC (Wed) by gus3 (guest, #61103)
Parent article: Removing the Linux /dev/random blocking pool

For a while, I had connected the RPi's /dev/hwrng to a TCP port, just for laughs, to see if I could export a better entropy for my home network. It worked, until my desktop system failed and I lost the notes I'd taken.

But this whole discussion suggests a more... *radical* possibility: a Raspberry Pi Zero, attached as a USB dongle, running dedicated kernel-level code to transmit entropy from the HWRNG to the USB bus. And on the host side, a kernel driver(?) to read the external entropy from the RPi Zero.

Yes, the security cautions are numerous. But 95Kb/s of entropy, for less than $10, seems an avenue worth exploring.

small correction

Posted Jan 8, 2020 1:36 UTC (Wed) by gus3 (guest, #61103) [Link]

95KB/s, kilo*bytes* per second, not bits.

FWIW, that's over 800 feet of randomly punched paper tape per second. ;-)

the hardware RNG on a Raspberry Pi?

Posted Jan 11, 2020 14:39 UTC (Sat) by naptastic (guest, #60139) [Link]

the hardware RNG on a Raspberry Pi?

Posted Feb 18, 2020 1:42 UTC (Tue) by ttelford (guest, #44176) [Link]

You may be interested in the “entropybroker” package in Debian/Rasbpian, which lets you use one hardware RNG, and share it over a network. The documentation is not so great, though. Also: I like the bit babbler http://www.bitbabbler.org/