Re: /dev/one - why not /dev/repeat?

Jeff Epler (jepler@inetnebr.com)
Sat, 26 Dec 1998 06:01:11 -0600

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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