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Re:/dev/random and virtual systems by tptacek on Sunday May 29, 2011 @02:02PM (#2597104)
That's an interesting trick but not really representative of the problem. Reusing an RNG's entropy pool wholesale after restarting a snapshot is a mistake, not a design flaw.
Re:/dev/random and virtual systems by stipes on Sunday May 29, 2011 @02:18PM (#2597138)
Part of the problem is the conflict of transparency and security here. Fixing the wholesale reuse of RNG state would most likely require modifying the guest so that it is aware of being restarted from a snapshot so it can react appropriately.

However, that might have consequences on what restoring from a snapshot means conceptually.

Re:/dev/random and virtual systems by yuhong on Sunday May 29, 2011 @03:49PM (#2597392)
How about having a command to manually reseed the PRNG?
Re:/dev/random and virtual systems by tptacek on Sunday May 29, 2011 @04:27PM (#2597500)
You mean like write(2)? :)
Re:/dev/random and virtual systems by stipes on Sunday May 29, 2011 @07:52PM (#2597950)
Yes, in general write to /dev/random with the write permissions is how entropy gathering daemons and the like work. It gets added the input and mixed in. However, that doesn't fix the issue of how a snapshot restore works on most hypervisors. Adding an RNG refresh as part of the restore process could be possible, but definitely not trivial, and it could have other consequences if not carefully implemented.
Re:/dev/random and virtual systems by yuhong on Sunday May 29, 2011 @03:45PM (#2597381)
Not to mention that if you let untrusted people control VMs on the host side, you have bigger problems than this attack.