Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 19:10:18 -0700
From: Justin Pryzby <justinpryzby@users.sf.net>
Subject: Re: /dev/random broken?
In-reply-to: <E19WOvK-0001I7-00@andromeda>
To: "Luca T." <luca-t@libero.it>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Message-id: <20030629021018.GA26162@andromeda>
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/dev/urandom is what you want; it makes up its own entropy.  /dev/random
uses entropy from user input (low order bits I imagine).  I assume that
this is how other unixes work, too.

Justin

On Sun, Jun 29, 2003 at 02:16:02AM +0000, Luca T. wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> i am not sure if this is a kernel/module problem but so it seems to me.
> My computer is an AMD 2000+ with an ABIT motherboard, my kernel version
> is 2.4.21-0.13mdk (but i tried it with 2.4.21-0.18mdk too and it doesn't
> work either).
> 
> If i give this command:
>  dd if=/dev/zero of=./xxx bs=1024 count=100
> it will work perfectly. But if i try to do the same reading from
> /dev/random with this command:
>  dd if=/dev/random of=./xxx bs=1024 count=100
> it will just sit there and stare at me until i move the mouse... and
> then the program will exit without any error message (i checked in
> /var/log/messages too and there is no message there either about this).
> 
> Is this a bug? If yes... do you have any idea that would help me fix it?
> 
> Thank you,
>     Luca
> 
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