• Tom Lane's avatar
    Use pg_strong_random() to select each server process's random seed. · 4203842a
    Tom Lane authored
    Previously we just set the seed based on process ID and start timestamp.
    Both those values are directly available within the session, and can
    be found out or guessed by other users too, making the session's series
    of random(3) values fairly predictable.  Up to now, our backend-internal
    uses of random(3) haven't seemed security-critical, but commit 88bdbd3f
    added one that potentially is: when using log_statement_sample_rate, a
    user might be able to predict which of his SQL statements will get logged.
    
    To improve this situation, upgrade the per-process seed initialization
    method to use pg_strong_random() if available, greatly reducing the
    predictability of the initial seed value.  This adds a few tens of
    microseconds to process start time, but since backend startup time is
    at least a couple of milliseconds, that seems an acceptable price.
    
    This means that pg_strong_random() needs to be able to run without
    reliance on any backend infrastructure, since it will be invoked
    before any of that is up.  It was safe for that already, but adjust
    comments and #include commands to make it clearer.
    
    Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/3859.1545849900@sss.pgh.pa.us
    4203842a
pg_strong_random.c 3.9 KB