rngd.8.in

.\" Copyright (C) 2017 - Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>
.\"
.TH RNGD 8 "March 2001" "@PACKAGE@ @VERSION@"

.SH NAME
rngd \- Check and feed random data from hardware device to kernel random device

.SH SYNOPSIS
.B rngd
[\fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-background\fR]
[\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-foreground\fR]
[\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-debug\fR]
[\fB\-l\fR, \fB\-\-list\fR]
[\fB\-x\fR, \fB\-\-exclude\fR]
[\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-include\fR]
[\fB\-O\fR, \fB\-\-option\fR]
[\fB\-i\fR, \fB\-\-ignorefail\fR]
[\fB\-o\fR, \fB\-\-random-device=\fIfile\fR]
[\fB\-p\fR, \fB\-\-pid-file=\fIfile\fR]
[\fB\-r\fR, \fB\-\-rng-device=\fIfile\fR]
[\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-random-step=\fInnn\fR]
[\fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-test\fR]
[\fB\-W\fR, \fB\-\-fill-watermark=\fInnn\fR]
[\fB\-R\fR, \fB\-\-force-reseed=\fInnn\fR]
[\fB\-u\fR, \fB\-\-use-slow-sources\fR]
[\fB\-D\fR, \fB\-\-drop-privileges=\fIuser:group\fR]
[\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR]
[\fB\-?\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR]
[\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR]
.RI

.SH DESCRIPTION
This daemon feeds data from a random number generator to the kernel's
random number entropy pool, after first checking the data to ensure that
it is properly random.
.PP
The \fB\-f\fR or \fB\-\-foreground\fR options can be used to tell
\fBrngd\fR to avoid forking on startup.  This is typically used for
debugging.  The \fB\-b\fR or \fB\-\-background\fR options, which fork and put
\fBrngd\fR into the background automatically, are the default.
.PP
The \fB\-r\fR or \fB\-\-rng-device\fR options can be used to select an
alternate source of input, besides the default /dev/hwrng.
The \fB\-o\fR or \fB\-\-random-device\fR options can be used to select
an alternate entropy output device, besides the default /dev/random.
Note that this device must support the Linux kernel /dev/random
ioctl API.
.PP

.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-background\fR
Become a daemon (default)
.TP
\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-foreground\fR
Do not fork and become a daemon
.TP
\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-debug\fR
Enable debug messages
.TP
\fB\-l\fR, \fB\-\-list\fR
List the indexes and names of available entropy sources. Exit code when listing
sources is 0 if at least 1 entropy source was found and initialized, 1
otherwise.
.TP
\fB\-x\fR, \fB\-\-exclude\fR
Disable entropy sources based on index or (shortname) reported from --list option
.TP
\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-include\fR
Enable entropy sources based on index or (shortname) reported from --list option
.TP
\fB\-O\fR, \fB\-\-option\fR
Provide specific config options to individual entropy sources, in the format
--option [index|shortname]:key:value.  See Entropy Sources section below for indices and
source specific options.  Note that specifying \fB-O [<index>|<shortname>]\fR will print the
available options for that index to the console.
.TP
\fB\-p\fI file\fR, \fB\-\-pid-file=\fIfile\fR
File used for recording daemon PID, and multiple exclusion
(default: /var/run/rngd.pid)
.TP
\fB\-i\fR, \fB\-\-ignorefail\fR
Ignore repeated fips failures
.TP
\fB\-o\fI file\fR, \fB\-\-random-device=\fIfile\fR
Kernel device used for random number output
(default: /dev/random)
.TP
\fB\-r\fI file\fR, \fB\-\-rng-device=\fIfile\fR
Kernel device used for random number input
(default: /dev/hwrng)
.TP
\fB\-s\fI nnn\fR, \fB\-\-random-step=\fInnn\fR
Number of bytes written to random-device at a time (default: 64)
.TP
\fB\-t, \fB\-\-test\fR
Enter test mode.  In this mode (which implies -f), all generated entropy is
discarded and rngd reports the amount of entropy generated every second.
.TP
\fB\-e\fI nnn\fR, \fB\-\-entropy-count=\fInnn\fR
Number of bits to consider random when adding entropy. 1<=e<=8
(default: 8)
.TP
\fB\-W\fI n\fR, \fB\-\-fill\-watermark=\fInnn\fR
Once we start doing it, feed entropy to \fIrandom-device\fR until at least
\fIfill-watermark\fR bits of entropy are available in its entropy pool.
By default, this value is set to 75% of the entropy pool size or 2048 bits
if the entropy pool size couldn't be determined.
Setting this too high will cause \fIrngd\fR to dominate the contents of the
entropy pool.  Low values will hurt system performance during entropy
starves.  Do not set \fIfill-watermark\fR above the size of the
entropy pool (usually 256 bits).  A value of 0 to this option will cause no
watermark to be set.
.TP
\fB\-R\fI n\fR, \fB\-\-force-reseed=\fInnn\fR
For newer kernels which support non-blocking entropy pools, it is still
beneficial to periodically add fresh entropy as a reseeding event.
--force-reseed defines the number of seconds between which fresh entropy is
added to the kernel entropy pool.  Defaults to 5 minutes.
.TP
\fB\-u\fR, \fB\-\-use-slow-sources\fR
The entropy sources nist, jitter and pkcs11 are considered to be slow in providing entropy.
By default their data is only used after all other sources failed to provide valid entropy 
a 100 times over. With this option rngd always tries to gather entropy from these sources too.
.TP
\fB\-D\fR, \fB\-\-drop-privileges=\fIuser:group\fR
Drop privileges to a user and a group specified after initialization. A user
and a group can be specified as a name or as a numerical id and must be separated
with a colon. A user and a group must exist. A default is not to drop privileges.
.TP
\fB\-q\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
Suppress all messages
.TP
\fB\-?\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
Give a short summary of all program options
.TP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
Print program version

.SH
ENTROPY SOURCES
.P
Rngd is made up of multiple entropy sources, the data from which is
aggregated and fed into the kernels entropy pool.  Note that not all entropy
sources are available on all systems, and if an entropy source is enabled for a
system on which it is not appropriate (or possible) to use, it may fail
initialization.  It is not fatal to rngd for any single entropy source to fail
during startup.  Only a single entropy sources is needed for rngd to operate.
The following entropy sources are currently defined in rngd

.TP
.B
Hardware RNG (hwrng) 
The Hardware RNG is a generic entropy source that draws entropy from a hardware
rng attached by default to /dev/hwrng

.TP
.B
TPM (tpm) 
Entropy drawn from on board TPM device.  Note this entropy source is deprecated
and will be removed soon, as newer tpm devices export entropy via /dev/hwrng,
which is collected by the hwrng source above

.TP
.B
RDRAND/RDSEED (rdrand) 
Entropy drawn from the RDRAND and RDSEED instructions (x86 only)
.TP
Options

\fBuse_aes - \fR select if rdrand is used to seed a cprng to produce entropy, or
if all entropy is drawn directly from rdrand instruction (default 0)

.TP
.B
DARN (darn) 
Entropy drawn from the DARN instruction (ppc64 only)
.TP
Options

\fBuse_aes - \fR select if the power darn instruction is used to directly fill
the entropy poll, or if it is used as a periodic seed to an aes based cprng
(default 1)

.TP
.B
RNDR (rndr) 
Entropy drawn from the RNDR instruction (aarch64 only)

.TP
Options

\fBuse_aes - \fR select if the arm rndr instruction is used to directly fill
the entropy poll, or if it is used as a periodic seed to an aes based cprng
(default 0)

.TP
.B
NIST Entropy Beacon (nist) 
Entropy gathered from the NIST network entropy beacon.  Note that this entropy
source is disabled by default as it should never be used for cryptographic
purposes, or any use case in which random data should be known only by a single
entity.

.TP
.B
Qrypt Entropy Beacon (qrypt) 
Entropy gathered from the qrypt entropy beacon.  Note this beacon provides
entropy to remote clients over a TLS connection.  As such this source should not
be used for cryptographic operations unless the security of the network can be
guaranteed against man in the middle and other network based attacks.

.TP
Options
\fBtokenfile - \fR Specify the file containing the access token to the Qrypt beacon

\fBdelay - \fR Specify the maximum delay (in seconds) that the source will wait
when there are temporary conditions preventing entropy retrieval before trying
to fetch entropy again. The default maximum delay is eight hours, exponentially
counting up from one second upwards, in powers of two.

.TP
.B
JITTER (jitter) 
Entropy gathered by measuring timing variance of operations on the local cpu
.TP
Options
\fBthread_count - \fR Set the number of threads that the jitter entropy source will spawn

\fBbuffer_size - \fR Set the size of the buffer cache that each thread maintains

\fBrefill_thresh - \fR Set the low watermark for the cache that triggers its corresponding thread to start refill operations

\fBretry_count - \fR If all entropy buffers are empty, retry this many times before giving up.  Note that jitterentropy can take several seconds to refill a buffer, and so retries after a delay may be preferable to repeatedly spining on an empty buffer (default 1)

\fBretry_delay - \fR between each retry for retry_count above, sleep for this many seconds. May also be the special value -1, representing adaptive sleep, where each retry delay will be half the recorded execution time of the last entropy gathering round (default -1)

\fBforce_soft_timer - \fR on platforms with a hardware timer that is too coarse to sample jitter, we can instead use a software based timer loop.  Detection and use of this mechanism is automatic, but this can be useful for testing purposes

.TP
.B
PKCS11 (pkcs11) 
Entropy gathered via the opensc openssl engine, which can extract entropy from
various smart card readers. Install a package for your distribution containing
pkcs11 endpoint library to gather smartcard entropy. This is \fBopensc\fR for
Fedora, \fBopensc-pkcs11\fR for Debian/Ubuntu or another package containing
opensc-pkcs11.so.
.TP
Options
\fBengine_path - \fR Set the patch for the pkcs11 engine DSO to load

\fBchunk_size - \fR Some pkcs11 engines have restrictions on how much data can
be requested at a time, this option allows for the request to be subdivided into
smaller chunks to be satisfied

.TP
.B
RTLSDR (rtlsdr) 
Entropy gathered via the rtl software defined radio library, which can gather
entropy using various usb software defined radios listening to random radio
static
.TP
Options
\fBdevid - \fR When multiple devices are available the integer index of the
device to use

\fBfreq_min - \fR The minimum frequence range to scan in

\fBfreq_max - \fR The maximum frequency range to scan in

\fBsample_min - \fR The minimum sample rate of the radio

\fBsample_max - \fR The maximum sample rate of the radio

.TP
.B
Named pipe (namedpipe) 
Reads entropy from a named pipe (aka FIFO). Another program, for example a 
driver reading and preparing data from an external hardware RNG, is expected
to feed entropy into this named pipe. Should the named pipe be closed,
rngd will try to reopen it.
.TP
Options
\fBpath - \fR Path of the named pipe. Required.

\fBtimeout - \fR Maximum time in seconds rngd waits until a full FIPS test buffer
of entropy can be read. Defaults to 5.

.SH AUTHORS
Philipp Rumpf
.br
Jeff Garzik \- jgarzik@pobox.com
.br
Matt Sottek
.br
Brad Hill
.br
Neil Horman - nhorman@tuxdriver.com