RHEL Engineering is moving the tracking of its product development work on RHEL 6 through RHEL 9 to Red Hat Jira (issues.redhat.com). If you're a Red Hat customer, please continue to file support cases via the Red Hat customer portal. If you're not, please head to the "RHEL project" in Red Hat Jira and file new tickets here. Individual Bugzilla bugs in the statuses "NEW", "ASSIGNED", and "POST" are being migrated throughout September 2023. Bugs of Red Hat partners with an assigned Engineering Partner Manager (EPM) are migrated in late September as per pre-agreed dates. Bugs against components "kernel", "kernel-rt", and "kpatch" are only migrated if still in "NEW" or "ASSIGNED". If you cannot log in to RH Jira, please consult article #7032570. That failing, please send an e-mail to the RH Jira admins at rh-issues@redhat.com to troubleshoot your issue as a user management inquiry. The email creates a ServiceNow ticket with Red Hat. Individual Bugzilla bugs that are migrated will be moved to status "CLOSED", resolution "MIGRATED", and set with "MigratedToJIRA" in "Keywords". The link to the successor Jira issue will be found under "Links", have a little "two-footprint" icon next to it, and direct you to the "RHEL project" in Red Hat Jira (issue links are of type "https://issues.redhat.com/browse/RHEL-XXXX", where "X" is a digit). This same link will be available in a blue banner at the top of the page informing you that that bug has been migrated.
Bug 1178871 - rngd man page incorrectly displays /dev/hwrandom as default device
Summary: rngd man page incorrectly displays /dev/hwrandom as default device
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Classification: Red Hat
Component: rng-tools
Version: 7.1
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Linux
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: rc
: ---
Assignee: Neil Horman
QA Contact: Vilém Maršík
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: 1353018
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2015-01-05 15:07 UTC by Rachel Sibley
Modified: 2017-08-01 12:48 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-08-01 12:48:37 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Product Errata RHBA-2017:2262 0 normal SHIPPED_LIVE rng-tools bug fix update 2017-08-01 16:10:39 UTC

Description Rachel Sibley 2015-01-05 15:07:04 UTC
Description of problem:

The man pages for rngd is displaying /dev/hwrandom as the default device yet the source code shows /dev/hwrng.  Man pages should be updated to reflect the correct default device.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
rng-tools-5-2.ael7a.ppc64le

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run 'man rngd'


Actual results:
-r file, --rng-device=file 
   Kernel device used for random number input (default: /dev/hwrandom)


Expected results:
-r file, --rng-device=file 
   Kernel device used for random number input (default: /dev/hwrng)


Additional info:

~]# hostname
ibm-p8-kvm-01-guest-02.lab.eng.rdu.redhat.com

~]# uname -r
3.10.0-201.ael7a.ppc64le

~]# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.1 Beta (Maipo)

~]# rpm -q rng-tools
rng-tools-5-2.ael7a.ppc64le


~]# man rngd
RNGD(8)                     System Manager's Manual                    RNGD(8)

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

SYNOPSIS
       rngd [-b, --background]  [-f,  --foreground]  [-i,  --ignorefail]  [-o,
       --random-device=file]  [-p,  --pid-file=file]  [-r,  --rng-device=file]
       [-s, --random-step=nnn] [-W, --fill-watermark=nnn] [-d,  --no-drng=1|0]
       [-n,  --no-tpm=1|0]  [-q,  --quiet]  [-v,  --verbose] [-?, --help] [-V,
       --version]

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.

       The -f or --foreground options can be used to tell rngd to avoid  fork‐
       ing  on  startup.   This  is  typically  used for debugging.  The -b or
       --background options, which fork and put rngd into the background auto‐
       matically, are the default.

       The  -r  or  --rng-device  options  can  be used to select an alternate
       source of input, besides the default /dev/hwrandom.  The -o  or  --ran‐
       dom-device  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.

OPTIONS
       -b, --background
              Become a daemon (default)

       -f, --foreground
              Do not fork and become a daemon

       -p file, --pid-file=file
              File  used  for  recording  daemon  PID,  and multiple exclusion
              (default: /var/run/rngd.pid)

       -i, --ignorefail
              Ignore repeated fips failures

       -o file, --random-device=file
              Kernel device used for random number output (default:  /dev/ran‐
              dom)

       -r file, --rng-device=file
              Kernel device used for random number input (default: /dev/hwran‐
              dom)

       -s nnn, --random-step=nnn
              Number of bytes written to random-device at a time (default: 64)

       -W n, --fill-watermark=nnn
              Once we start doing it, feed entropy to random-device  until  at
              least  fill-watermark  bits  of  entropy  are  available  in its
              entropy pool (default: 2048).  Setting this too high will  cause
              rngd  to  dominate the contents of the entropy pool.  Low values
              will hurt system performance during entropy starves.  Do not set
              fill-watermark  above the size of the entropy pool (usually 4096
              bits).

       -d 1|0, --no-drng=1|0
              Do not use drng as a source of random number input (default:0)

       -n 1|0, --no-tpm=1|0
              Do not use tpm as a source of random number input (default:0)

       -q, --quiet
              Suppress error messages

       -v, --verbose
              Report available entropy sources

       -?, --help
              Give a short summary of all program options.

       -V, --version
              Print program version

AUTHORS
       Philipp Rumpf
       Jeff Garzik - jgarzik
       Matt Sottek
       Brad Hill

rng-tools 5                       March 2001                           RNGD(8)

rngd.c source code:
------------------------
static struct argp_option options[] = {
        { "foreground", 'f', 0, 0, "Do not fork and become a daemon" },

        { "ignorefail", 'i', 0, 0, "Ignore repeated fips failures" },

        { "background", 'b', 0, 0, "Become a daemon (default)" },

        { "random-device", 'o', "file", 0,
          "Kernel device used for random number output (default: /dev/random)" },

        { "rng-device", 'r', "file", 0,
          "Kernel device used for random number input (default: /dev/hwrng)" },
<snip>


static struct rng rng_default = {
        .rng_name       = "/dev/hwrng",
        .rng_fd         = -1,
        .xread          = xread,
};

Comment 2 Neil Horman 2015-03-10 20:25:49 UTC
changes are checked in but mock keeps failing.  I'll need to try again tomorrow and hope rel-eng has this solved

Comment 5 Vilém Maršík 2017-05-02 22:52:27 UTC
rng-tools-5-2.el7.x86_64:
# man rngd | grep /dev
       /dev/hwrandom.   The  -o  or  --random-device  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.
              Kernel device used for random number output (default: /dev/random)
              Kernel device used for random number input (default: /dev/hwrandom)


rng-tools-5-9.el7.x86_64:
# man rngd | grep /dev
       /dev/hwrng.  The -o or --random-device 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.
              Kernel device used for random number output (default: /dev/random)
              Kernel device used for random number input (default: /dev/hwrng)

Comment 6 errata-xmlrpc 2017-08-01 12:48:37 UTC
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2017:2262


Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.