Linux 5.18 To Bring Many Random Number Generator Improvements

WireGuard lead developer Jason Donenfeld has recently been spearheading many improvements to the Linux kernel's random number generator (RNG) code and building off the work found in Linux 5.17, the Linux 5.18 kernel will bring a lot more on this front.

Recently we reported on how Donenfeld is working on RNG improvements for better VM security, massive performance improvements, and more.

For Linux 5.18 the patches are ready where /dev/urandom and /dev/random now behave exactly the same (at least are now supposed to), improvements to RDRAND/RDSEED handling to mitigate "ridiculous hypothetical CPU backdoors", CRNG using per-CPU data, CPU hotplug handling improvements, the virtual machine handling enhancements for fork / clone / snapshot, boot time random number generation improvements, and a variety of other work.

See this early RNG pull request of the "random" changes ready for the Linux 5.18 kernel. Jason Donenfeld has also published a web page outlining the work on RNG improvements for the Linux 5.17 and 5.18 kernels.