/dev/urandom is a hack. In a perfect world, the /dev/random device would be able to return a string of random numbers as fast as you wanted, and there would not have been a need for /dev/urandom
Since FreeBSD tries to be close to perfect ;-) it uses a better random driver that can produce random numbers as fast as you want them. The symlink is there only as a crutch for older UNIX code that was written when there was a difference between /dev/random and /dev/urandom Ted > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Roland Smith > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 8:37 AM > To: Per olof Ljungmark > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: /dev/random question > > > On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 04:56:26PM +0200, Per olof Ljungmark wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Could someone on the list point me to a document that explains the > > functionality of /dev/random in FreeBSD in a little more depth > than the man > > page? In other OS's I've looked at random and urandom are > different, here > > it's a symlink (talking about RELENG-6 onwards). > > FreeBSD uses the yarrow algorithm, as mentioned in random(4). See > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarrow_algorithm > http://www.schneier.com/yarrow.html > > Roland > -- > R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ > [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] > pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) > _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
