Matt Mackall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, May 29, 2007 at 05:44:37PM +0100, M Macnair wrote: > > On 29 May 2007 18:58:59 +0200, Andi Kleen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >"M Macnair" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > >> > > >> Many distros ship with an init script that saves and restores the > > >> entropy pool on startup and shutdown. The bit that interests me that > > >> is called on startup is (my comments): > > >> if [ -f $random_seed ]; then > > >> cat $random_seed >/dev/urandom # should seed the pool > > >OA > > >Writing doesn't actually work; to get real accounted entropy for > > >/dev/random > > >you need to use a special ioctl. I ran into this problem some years ago > > >and ended up writing http://www.muc.de/~ak/rndfeed.c > > > > > >-Andi > > > > If this doesn't work, then it seems to me as though all the > > debian-esque distros that use equivalents of the above script are > > wasting their time, and the man page recommending that technique (man > > 4 random) is also wrong. Is that interpretation correct? > > Andi is incorrect. Writing does work and everything you write is mixed
Note I wrote accounted entropy above. > into the pool. It's just not counted as entropy credit. This means everything using /dev/random blocks. For me that includes "does not work". > This is as intended. If the intention was to get everybody from stopping /dev/random and moving them to /dev/urandom I guess it works well. Congratulations. -Andi - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
