hello, this is my first post here, so please sorry if the question feels clumsy or inappropriate.
i am concerned about the use of random generation so i thought using openssl random generation algorithm would be agood idea. Indeed after browsing at the openssl rand source it seems the seeding part feels rather serious compared to other implementations i have seen. However, i am experiencing a funny situation I tried to generate 100 bytes using openssl rand 100 But i observed on my Windows machine (openssl from cygwin) that sometimes the result is not always 100 bytes long, I experienced 101, 102... However, while using -hex switch, the variable size issue does not seem to reproduce. Observation does not reproduce at all on Ubuntu 12.04 btw (see version info below) Do you guys reproduce the behavior ? Am i missing something obvious ? is it related to my environment ? is it an openssl bug (i have not seen anything like this on http://rt.openssl.org/index.html?q=rand) thanks alexis Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ uname -a CYGWIN_NT-5.1 LORCAP0006 1.7.15(0.260/5/3) 2012-05-09 10:25 i686 Cygwin Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 102 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 101 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 101 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 101 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 101 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 100 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 | wc -c 101 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@LORCAP0006 ~ $ openssl rand 100 -hex | wc -c 202 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 | wc -c 100372 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 | wc -c 100378 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 | wc -c 100373 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 | wc -c 100385 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 | wc -c 100354 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 | wc -c 100403 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 | wc -c 100409 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 -hex | wc -c 200002 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 -hex | wc -c 200002 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 -hex | wc -c 200002 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ openssl rand 100000 -hex | wc -c 200002 Alexis@CORLAP0006 /usr/src/openssl-1.0.1c $ ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ uname -a Linux ubuntu-VirtualBox 3.2.0-24-generic-pae #37-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 25 10:47:59 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl version OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:~$ openssl rand 120 | wc -c 120 ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List openssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager majord...@openssl.org
