freebsd-dev/lib/libc/sys/getrandom.2
Conrad Meyer 86def3dcd6 getrandom(2): Add Linux GRND_INSECURE API flag
Treat it as a synonym for GRND_NONBLOCK.  The reasoning is this:

We have two choices for handling Linux's GRND_INSECURE API flag.

1. We could ignore it completely (like GRND_RANDOM).  However, this might
produce the surprising result of GRND_INSECURE requests blocking, when the
Linux API does not block.

2. Alternatively, we could treat GRND_INSECURE requests as requests for
GRND_NONBLOCk.  Here, the surprising result for Linux programs is that
invocations with unseeded random(4) will produce EAGAIN, rather than
garbage.

Honoring the flag in the way Linux does seems fraught.  If we actually use
the output of a random(4) implementation prior to seeding, we leak some
entropy (in an information theory and also practical sense) from what will
be the initial seed to attackers (or allow attackers to arbitrary DoS
initial seeding, if we don't leak).  This seems unacceptable -- it defeats
the purpose of blocking on initial seeding.

Secondary to that concern, before seeding we may have arbitrarily little
entropy collected; producing output from zero or a handful of entropy bits
does not seem particularly useful to userspace.

If userspace can accept garbage, insecure, non-random bytes, they can create
their own insecure garbage with srandom(time(NULL)) or similar.  Any program
which would be satisfied with a 3-bit key CTR stream has no need for CSPRNG
bytes.  So asking the kernel to produce such an output from the secure
getrandom(2) API seems inane.

For now, we've elected to emulate GRND_INSECURE as an alternative spelling
of GRND_NONBLOCK (2).  Consider this API not-quite stable for now.  We
guarantee it will never block.  But we will attempt to monitor actual port
uptake of this bizarre API and may revise our plans for the unseeded
behavior (prior stable/13 branching).

Approved by:	csprng(markm), manpages(bcr)
See also:	https://lwn.net/ml/linux-kernel/cover.1577088521.git.luto@kernel.org/
See also:	https://lwn.net/ml/linux-kernel/20200107204400.GH3619@mit.edu/
Differential Revision:	https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23130
2020-01-12 20:47:38 +00:00

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.\" Copyright 2020, 2018 Conrad Meyer <cem@FreeBSD.org>. All rights reserved.
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.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd January 12, 2020
.Dt GETRANDOM 2
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm getrandom
.Nd get random data
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/random.h
.Ft ssize_t
.Fn getrandom "void *buf" "size_t buflen" "unsigned int flags"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Fn getrandom
fills
.Fa buf
with up to
.Fa buflen
bytes of random data.
.Pp
The
.Fa flags
argument may include zero or more of the following:
.Bl -tag -width _GRND_NONBLOCK_
.It Ql GRND_NONBLOCK
Return
.Er EAGAIN
instead of blocking, if the
.Xr random 4
device has not yet been seeded.
By default,
.Fn getrandom
will block until the device is seeded.
.It Ql GRND_RANDOM
This flag does nothing on
.Fx .
.Pa /dev/random
and
.Pa /dev/urandom
are identical.
.It Ql GRND_INSECURE
This flag is treated as an alternative name for
.Dv GRND_NONBLOCK .
It is provided solely for API compatibility with Linux.
.El
.Pp
If the
.Xr random 4
device has been seeded, reads of up to 256 bytes will always return as many
bytes as requested and will not be interrupted by signals.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, the number of bytes which were actually read is
returned.
For requests larger than 256 bytes, this can be fewer bytes than were
requested.
Otherwise, -1 is returned and the global variable
.Va errno
is set to indicate the error.
.Sh ERRORS
The
.Fn getrandom
operation returns the following errors:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EAGAIN
The
.Ql GRND_NONBLOCK
(or
.Ql GRND_INSECURE )
flag was set and the
.Xr random 4
device was not yet seeded.
.It Bq Er EFAULT
The
.Fa buf
parameter points to an invalid address.
.It Bq Er EINTR
The sleep was interrupted by a signal.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
An invalid
.Fa flags
was specified.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
The requested
.Fa buflen
was larger than
.Dv IOSIZE_MAX .
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr arc4random 3 ,
.Xr getentropy 3 ,
.Xr random 4
.Sh STANDARDS
.Fn getrandom
is non-standard.
It is present in Linux.
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn getrandom
system call first appeared in
.Fx 12.0 .
.Sh CAVEATS
Unlike Linux, the
.Dv GRND_INSECURE
flag on
.Fx
does not produce any output before the
.Xr random 4
device is seeded.