Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Mon, 19 Aug 2002 11:33:30 -0500 | From | Oliver Xymoron <> | Subject | Re: Problem with random.c and PPC |
| |
On Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 06:20:14PM +0200, Marco Colombo wrote: > > We're never "discarding" entropy. We're just feeling more and more > confortable in saying we've stored 'poolsize' random bits.
Yes we are. The pool can only hold n bits. If it's full and we mix in m more bits, we're losing m bits in the process.
> But what you say is definitely true... on my desktop system I only need > to move the mouse a couple of times to fill the pool completely in a > matter of seconds.
Heh. That's actually a bug. Your mouse movement is only giving the system a few hundred bits of entropy (by the current code's measurements), but /dev/random will give out thousands.
Note that above a certain velocity, mouse samples are back to back characters on the serial port (or packets in the keyboard controller), so most of the timing entropy is in the early acceleration or during direction changes.
> I see little convenience in having /dev/urandom semantic in the kernel > (besides the fact it's already there, of course).
The kernel uses it internally for numerous things like sequence numbers, syncookies, and UUIDs. So it doesn't take much to justify exporting it..
-- "Love the dolphins," she advised him. "Write by W.A.S.T.E.." - 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/
|  |