tree 6d191ed116f54aebd2e2c3e6c2937992ef86f928
parent c8d2bc9bc39ebea8437fd974fdbc21847bb897a3
author Emese Revfy <re.emese@gmail.com> 1466448079 +0200
committer Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> 1476136304 -0700

gcc-plugins: Add latent_entropy plugin

This adds a new gcc plugin named "latent_entropy". It is designed to
extract as much possible uncertainty from a running system at boot time as
possible, hoping to capitalize on any possible variation in CPU operation
(due to runtime data differences, hardware differences, SMP ordering,
thermal timing variation, cache behavior, etc).

At the very least, this plugin is a much more comprehensive example for
how to manipulate kernel code using the gcc plugin internals.

The need for very-early boot entropy tends to be very architecture or
system design specific, so this plugin is more suited for those sorts
of special cases. The existing kernel RNG already attempts to extract
entropy from reliable runtime variation, but this plugin takes the idea to
a logical extreme by permuting a global variable based on any variation
in code execution (e.g. a different value (and permutation function)
is used to permute the global based on loop count, case statement,
if/then/else branching, etc).

To do this, the plugin starts by inserting a local variable in every
marked function. The plugin then adds logic so that the value of this
variable is modified by randomly chosen operations (add, xor and rol) and
random values (gcc generates separate static values for each location at
compile time and also injects the stack pointer at runtime). The resulting
value depends on the control flow path (e.g., loops and branches taken).

Before the function returns, the plugin mixes this local variable into
the latent_entropy global variable. The value of this global variable
is added to the kernel entropy pool in do_one_initcall() and _do_fork(),
though it does not credit any bytes of entropy to the pool; the contents
of the global are just used to mix the pool.

Additionally, the plugin can pre-initialize arrays with build-time
random contents, so that two different kernel builds running on identical
hardware will not have the same starting values.

Signed-off-by: Emese Revfy <re.emese@gmail.com>
[kees: expanded commit message and code comments]
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>