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$FreeBSD: head/share/man/man4/random.4 73872 2001-03-06 10:08:36Z markm $
.Dd February 10, 2001 .Dt RANDOM 4 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm random .Nd the entropy device .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm device accepts and reads data as any ordinary (and willing) file, but throws away any data written to it, and returns an endless supply of random bytes when read.
p The only purpose of writing data to .Nm is to perturb the internal state. This perturbation of the internal state is the only userland method of introducing extra entropy into the device. If the writer has superuser privilege, then closing the device after writing will make the internal generator reseed itself. This can be used for extra security, as it immediately introduces any/all new entropy into the PRNG. The .Nm device can be controlled with .Xr sysctl 8 .
p To see the devices' current settings, use the command line:
p .Dl sysctl kern.random
p which results in something like:
p d -literal -offset indent kern.random.sys.seeded: 1 kern.random.sys.harvest_ethernet: 0 kern.random.sys.harvest_point_to_point: 0 kern.random.sys.harvest_interrupt: 0 kern.random.yarrow.gengateinterval: 10 kern.random.yarrow.bins: 10 kern.random.yarrow.fastthresh: 100 kern.random.yarrow.slowthresh: 160 kern.random.yarrow.slowoverthresh: 2 .Ed
p All settings are read/write.
p The .Va kern.random.sys.seeded variable indicates whether or not the .Nm device is in an acceptably secure state as a result of reseeding. If set to 0, the device will block (on read) until the next reseed (which can be from an explicit write, or as a result of entropy harvesting). A reseed will set the value to 1 (non-blocking).
p The .Va kern.random.sys.harvest_ethernet variable is used to select LAN traffic as an entropy source. A zero (0) value means that LAN traffic is not considered as an entropy source. Set the variable to one (1) if you wish to use LAN traffic for entropy harvesting.
p The .Va kern.random.sys.harvest_point_to_point variable is used to select serial line traffic as an entropy source. (Serial line traffic includes PPP, SLIP and all tun0 traffic.) A zero (0) value means such traffic is not considered as an entropy source. Set the variable to one (1) if you wish to use it for entropy harvesting.
p The .Va kern.random.sys.harvest_interrupt variable is used to select hardware interrupts as an entropy source. A zero (0) value means interrupts are not considered as an entropy source. Set the variable to one (1) if you wish to use them for entropy harvesting. All interrupt harvesting is setup by the individual device drivers.
p The other variables are explained in the paper describing the .Em Yarrow algorithm at
a http://www.counterpane.com/yarrow.html . .Sh FILES l -tag -width /dev/random t Pa /dev/random .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr sysctl 8 .Sh HISTORY A .Nm device appeared in .Fx 2.2 . The early version was taken from Theodore Ts'o's entropy driver for Linux. The current implementation, introduced in .Fx 5.0 , is a complete rewrite by .An Mark R V Murray , and is an implementation of the .Em Yarrow algorithm by Bruce Schneier, .Em et al .