X-Git-Url: http://andersk.mit.edu/gitweb/openssh.git/blobdiff_plain/48e7916f513cb6fa03b5997ce57646b7b9a631da..ef2839b9393d9f994f3264806d49a3ebe0d37b00:/WARNING.RNG diff --git a/WARNING.RNG b/WARNING.RNG index 5f129f40..1b9137ed 100644 --- a/WARNING.RNG +++ b/WARNING.RNG @@ -12,16 +12,16 @@ 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. +Alternately, you can use Lutz Jaenicke's PRNGd - a small daemon which +collects random numbers and makes them available by a socket. 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 +40,10 @@ 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. @@ -78,3 +79,5 @@ up and various other factors. To make matters even more complex, some of the commands are reporting largely the same data as other commands (eg. the various "ps" calls). +$Id$ +