[coreboot] Asus Chromebox Panther: no HW RNG?

Grant Grundler grantgrundler at gmail.com
Tue Nov 27 08:11:54 CET 2018


Hi!
Asus Chromebox (Panther) with Celeron 2995U processor is supposed to
have a HW Random Number Generator:
   https://ark.intel.com/products/75608/Intel-Celeron-Processor-2955U-2M-Cache-1-40-GHz-

(Intel calls it Secure Key)

But "modprobe intel-rng" is failing with "No such device" (Debian
4.18.0-2-amd64 kernel).

That's because there isn't one listed in "lspci" output:
root at stoke:~# lspci -n
00:00.0 0600: 8086:0a04 (rev 09)
00:02.0 0300: 8086:0a06 (rev 09)
00:03.0 0403: 8086:0a0c (rev 09)
00:14.0 0c03: 8086:9c31 (rev 04)
00:16.0 0780: 8086:9c3a (rev 04)
00:1b.0 0403: 8086:9c20 (rev 04)
00:1c.0 0604: 8086:9c14 (rev e4)
00:1c.1 0604: 8086:9c16 (rev e4)
00:1c.2 0604: 8086:9c18 (rev e4)
00:1f.0 0601: 8086:9c45 (rev 04)
00:1f.2 0106: 8086:9c03 (rev 04)
00:1f.3 0c05: 8086:9c22 (rev 04)
00:1f.6 1180: 8086:9c24 (rev 04)
01:00.0 0200: 10ec:8168 (rev 0c)
02:00.0 0280: 168c:0034 (rev 01)

Could Firmware add the HW RNG so intel-rng is happy?

(I'll append human readable below)

Current firmware is:
[    0.000000] DMI: Google Panther/Panther, BIOS MattDevo 04/18/2016

And if this is fixed in a newer firmware update, please hand me the
paper bag I can hide under. :) I've downloaded a newer version of the
SeaBIOS but haven't (yet) found the instructions to install it.

Why do I care about HW RNG?
Because of this:
...
[    8.560270] r8169 0000:01:00.0 enp1s0: link up
[    8.560287] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): enp1s0: link becomes ready
[19039.712644] random: crng init done
[19039.712649] random: 7 urandom warning(s) missed due to ratelimiting
[19044.485625] wlp2s0: authenticate with ...
...

Yes, several *hours* until the crng was initialized and then
wpa_supplicant could start talking on WIFI. :(

The length of the delay varies...shortest was 7 minutes.

thanks for any help,
grant


# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT
Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB xHCI HC (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series HECI #0 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev e4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev e4)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev e4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series SATA Controller 1
[AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series SMBus Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series
Thermal (rev 04)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 Wireless Network
Adapter (rev 01)



More information about the coreboot mailing list