Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 26 Dec 1998 06:01:11 -0600 | From | Jeff Epler <> | Subject | Re: /dev/one - why not /dev/repeat? |
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On Fri, Dec 25, 1998 at 09:40:51PM -0400, Horst von Brand wrote: > As I said before, there is _nothing_ in /dev/random that the application > itself can't do, so this is at the very least a waste of a system call. Not > exactly efficient.
But the gathering of the "random" data from interrupts is not terribly portable, and the kernel has at least as good an idea of how much entopy it has gathered as a user-level app does.
Plus, /dev/{u,}random is there when you need it, if the system has been up long enough (and /dev/random hasn't been used lately) then you'll have the random values available immediately.
However, I think it's the intimate knowledge that the urandom device driver can have of the system's entropy-generating characteristics that is most valuable.
Jeff -- \/ http://www.slashdot.org/ Jeff Epler jepler@inetnebr.com What awful irony is this? We are as gods, but know it not.
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