Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261729AbUK2Pcs (ORCPT ); Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:32:48 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261730AbUK2Pcs (ORCPT ); Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:32:48 -0500 Received: from thunk.org ([69.25.196.29]:20701 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261729AbUK2Pcq (ORCPT ); Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:32:46 -0500 Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:32:31 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Herbert Xu Cc: David Wagner , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: no entropy and no output at /dev/random (quick question) Message-ID: <20041129153231.GA6060@thunk.org> Mail-Followup-To: Theodore Ts'o , Herbert Xu , David Wagner , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040907i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 988 Lines: 22 On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 05:29:45PM +1100, Herbert Xu wrote: > 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... More specifically, most applications should use /dev/urandom to seed a cryptographic random number generator which operates in userspace. - Ted - 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/