[New-bugs-announce] [issue27990] Provide a way to enable getrandom on Linux even when build system runs an older kernel

[Nick Coghlan]

New submission from Nick Coghlan:

The configure script determines the setting for HAVE_GETRANDOM_SYSCALL at build time, which means the dynamic check for getrandom() support in the Linux kernel gets disabled when building against an older kernel.

This impacts the implicit use of getrandom() in os.urandom(): https://mail.python.org/pipermail/security-sig/2016-June/000060.html

And also the new os.getrandom() API added in #27778: http://bugs.python.org/issue27778#msg274698

It's desirable to have a way of forcing the inclusion of the dynamic runtime check, even if the currently running kernel doesn't provide the syscall itself.

----------
messages: 274715
nosy: encukou, martin.panter, ncoghlan
priority: normal
severity: normal
stage: needs patch
status: open
title: Provide a way to enable getrandom on Linux even when build system runs an older kernel
type: enhancement
versions: Python 3.6

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue27990>
_______________________________________