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crypto/rand: cap getrandom reads to ~32 MB per call on Linux #20877

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Description

@Yawning

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

The problem is obvious from inspection of the source code and the documented Linux getrandom semantics, I looked at master.

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

This affects all Linux platforms with support for the getrandom() system call.

What did you do?

Looked at the code to see if crypto/rand was correct or not.

What did you expect to see?

getrandom() used correctly.

What did you see instead?

From the getrandom documentation:

When reading from the urandom source, a maximum of 33554431 bytes is returned by a single call to getrandom() on systems where int has a size of 32 bits.

From the system call implementation in drivers/char/random.c:

	if (count > INT_MAX)
		count = INT_MAX;

src/crypto/rand/rand_linux.go:getRandomLinux() will return false due to the truncated getrandom() output, and the caller will fall back to servicing the request by opening and reading from /dev/urandom.

While I would be inclined to agree that a Read that is 32 MiB - 1 bytes or larger is excessive and out of the ordinary, this still should be handled correctly or documented.

Activity

  1. changed the title [-]crypto/rand reads excessive amounts of entropy for very large requests.[/-] [+]crypto/rand: cap getrandom reads to ~32 MB per call on Linux[/+] on Jul 1, 2017
  2. added
    NeedsFixThe path to resolution is known, but the work has not been done.
    on Jul 1, 2017
  3. added this to the Go1.10 milestone on Jul 1, 2017
  4. bradfitz commented on Jul 1, 2017

    @bradfitz
    Contributor

    Thanks for the report.

  5. mmcloughlin commented on Jul 15, 2017

    @mmcloughlin
    Contributor

    I just attended the Gophercon Contributor Workshop and thought this might be a manageable fix to take on.

    I was looking around drivers/char/random.c as @Yawning pointed out, but I don't think the offending line is if (count > INT_MAX) ... because INT_MAX is probably 2^31-1. That line is here:

    https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/486088bc4689f826b80aa317b45ac9e42e8b25ee/drivers/char/random.c#L1916

    The syscall definition delegates to urandom_read which contains the line

    nbytes = min_t(size_t, nbytes, INT_MAX >> (ENTROPY_SHIFT + 3));

    https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/486088bc4689f826b80aa317b45ac9e42e8b25ee/drivers/char/random.c#L1782

    And ENTROPY_SHIFT is 3 (defined near the top of the file). That explains why the limit is 2^25-1 rather than 2^31-1.

  6. mmcloughlin commented on Jul 16, 2017

    @mmcloughlin
    Contributor

    I have been working on a patch. I'll put it out tomorrow for review.

  7. gopherbot commented on Jul 17, 2017

    @gopherbot
    Contributor

    CL https://golang.org/cl/49170 mentions this issue.

  8. locked and limited conversation to collaborators on Aug 9, 2018
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