Skip to main content

A DHCP Extension To Provide Initial Random Material
draft-sheffer-dhc-initial-random-00

Document Type Expired Internet-Draft (individual)
Expired & archived
Authors Yaron Sheffer , Paul E. Hoffman
Last updated 2014-06-07 (Latest revision 2013-12-04)
RFC stream (None)
Intended RFC status (None)
Formats
Stream Stream state (No stream defined)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state Expired
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)

This Internet-Draft is no longer active. A copy of the expired Internet-Draft is available in these formats:

Abstract

Some network devices get little or no entropy from their underlying operating systems when they are first started. As a result, cryptographic applications started before there is sufficient entropy in the operating system's pool can be initialized into a state that can be exploited by an attacker. This document defines a DHCP extension that can provide the operating system of a network device with some initial randomness that can only be known by an attacker who is on the same network segment as the device and its DHCP server. The operating system can mix this random input into its random pool early in the boot procedure and thus have more entropy available when cryptographic applications start.

Authors

Yaron Sheffer
Paul E. Hoffman

(Note: The e-mail addresses provided for the authors of this Internet-Draft may no longer be valid.)