From owner-freebsd-current Sun Mar 17 00:15:49 1996 Return-Path: owner-current Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id AAA29056 for current-outgoing; Sun, 17 Mar 1996 00:15:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from grumble.grondar.za (root@grumble.grondar.za [196.7.18.130]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA29048 for ; Sun, 17 Mar 1996 00:15:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from grumble.grondar.za (mark@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by grumble.grondar.za (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA20400 for ; Sun, 17 Mar 1996 10:15:29 +0200 (SAT) Message-Id: <199603170815.KAA20400@grumble.grondar.za> To: current@freebsd.org Subject: /dev/random - an idea/proposal Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 10:15:27 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-current@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi I am not completely happy with my current method of selecting the interrupts for /dev/random right now. (There is rndcontrol(8) with some command-line switches, and sysconfig has a line to edit). It is too easy to overlook, and I am very keen that /dev/random be seen to provide a decent source of entropy. I would like some way to be able to choose these at kernel build time - ie at the time the system manager configures her kernel, she nominates that a particular device's interrupts should be used. This I would like to do by adding a keyword "random", syntactically similar to "conflicts" to the config(8) grammar. This will then set that device's interrupt on by default at boot time. This will not interfere with rndcontrol(8), and the sysconfig section can/could be removed/ignored (or at least it would be 'safer' to do so). Comments? Flames? Praise? Ca$h? M -- Mark Murray 46 Harvey Rd, Claremont, Cape Town 7700, South Africa +27 21 61-3768 GMT+0200 Finger mark@grondar.za for PGP key