Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261403AbUK1G35 (ORCPT ); Sun, 28 Nov 2004 01:29:57 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261405AbUK1G35 (ORCPT ); Sun, 28 Nov 2004 01:29:57 -0500 Received: from arnor.apana.org.au ([203.14.152.115]:19204 "EHLO arnor.apana.org.au") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261403AbUK1G34 (ORCPT ); Sun, 28 Nov 2004 01:29:56 -0500 From: Herbert Xu To: daw-usenet@taverner.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) Subject: Re: no entropy and no output at /dev/random (quick question) Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Organization: Core In-Reply-To: X-Newsgroups: apana.lists.os.linux.kernel User-Agent: tin/1.7.4-20040225 ("Benbecula") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.27-hx-1-686-smp (i686)) Message-Id: Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 17:29:45 +1100 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 971 Lines: 23 David Wagner wrote: > > Yes, for almost all purposes, applications should use /dev/urandom, > not /dev/random. (The names for these devices are unfortunate.) > Sadly, many applications fail to follow these rules, and consequently > /dev/random's entropy pool often ends up getting depleted much faster > than it has to be. I agree with your conclusion that applications should use urandom. However, IIRC /dev/urandom depletes the entropy pool just as fast as /dev/random... Cheers, -- Visit Openswan at http://www.openswan.org/ Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmV>HI~} Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/ PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/