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authordjm <djm>2000-10-25 03:47:35 +0000
committerdjm <djm>2000-10-25 03:47:35 +0000
commit8c5d28a4b63a204454e7d6d58a42d7fd3602eb1e (patch)
tree09fd84682953fdd1f59f62544dbc64bd69a91718 /WARNING.RNG
parent0f3b0708a1b61a9de0ab7a5f4ea564066cff5b9e (diff)
downloadopenssh-8c5d28a4b63a204454e7d6d58a42d7fd3602eb1e.tar.gz
Reword
Diffstat (limited to 'WARNING.RNG')
-rw-r--r--WARNING.RNG13
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/WARNING.RNG b/WARNING.RNG
index 5f129f40..21f4901c 100644
--- a/WARNING.RNG
+++ b/WARNING.RNG
@@ -12,16 +12,14 @@ A particularly pernicious problem arises with DSA keys (used by the
ssh2 protocol). Performing a DSA signature (which is required for
authentication), entails the use of a 160 bit random number. If an
attacker can predict this number, then they can deduce your *private*
-key and impersonate you.
+key and impersonate you or your hosts.
If you are using the builtin random number support (configure will
-tell you if this is the case), then read this document in its entirety
-and consider disabling ssh2 support (by adding "Protocol 1" to
-sshd_config and ssh_config).
+tell you if this is the case), then read this document in its entirety.
Please also request that your OS vendor provides a kernel-based random
number collector (/dev/random) in future versions of your operating
-systems.
+systems by default.
On to the description...
@@ -40,9 +38,10 @@ the specified program.
The random number code will also read and save a seed file to
~/.ssh/prng_seed. This contents of this file are added to the random
-number generator at startup.
+number generator at startup. The goal here is to maintain as much
+randomness between sessions as possible.
-This approach presents two problems:
+The entropy collection code has two main problems:
1. It is slow.