RE: TLS_RANDFILE not recognized in ldap.conf/.ldaprc (ITS#733)

["Cheng, Ted C" <Ted.Cheng@ca.com>]

It works fine on my machine with ldap_pvt_tls_init() being
called at the beginning of ldap_pvt_tls_start(),
instead of ldap_int_initialize().

I am using randfile, instead of egd tough.

-Ted C. Cheng

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Weiser [mailto:michael@weiser.saale-net.de]
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 1:24 PM
To: Kurt@OpenLDAP.org
Cc: openldap-bugs@OpenLDAP.org
Subject: Re: TLS_RANDFILE not recognized in ldap.conf/.ldaprc (ITS#733)


Hello Kurt, you wrote:
>It wasn't an oversight.  It was done purposely as sharing (static)
>randfiles is not wise from a security standpoint.  If a system
>wise source of entropy is available which can be read using read(2),
>then it should be configured as the URANDOM_DEVICE.
But egd and prngd use a unix domain socket and not a device file. So
you have to read via RAND_egd() and not RAND_read_file(). They provide
a renewing entropy pool where you can read from and which shouldn't
get exhausted. So security should be even better than with static
randfiles.

BTW: prngd has a randsave file which one could read from but that IMHO
isn't a good idea since it's only used for saving the current entropy
pool on exit for the next start. Therefore it's internal to prngd and
not guaranteed to change in any way while the daemon is running.

Or am I missing something?

Perhaps there should be an extra option TLS_EGD_SOCKET or so which
only tries a RAND_egd() and gives up on error so that it can be
non-user-only? It could be overrideable by TLS_RANDFILE. I got it
halfway implemented here in five minutes, so I could complete it
almost instantly if you agree.
-- 
bye, Michael