rndtest
— FIPS
140-2 random number generator test monitor
The rndtest
driver “hooks
up” to hardware crypto devices to monitor the entropy data passed to
the
random(4)
subsystem. This data is periodically tested for FIPS 140-2 compliance and
statistics are collected. If the harvested entropy fails any of the FIPS
test suite, then it is discarded and testing is continuously applied until
“good data” is received from the device. Failures are
optionally reported on the console.
The idea for this and the original code came from
Jason L. Wright. The rndtest
device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0.
Crypto device drivers must be compiled specially to make use of
this driver; this should not be necessary. This feature might better be
integrated into the
random(4)
subsystem where it can be applied to devices that claim to supply
“pure entropy”.