From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 31 12:54:43 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C4BB616A423 for ; Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:54:43 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@meijome.net) Received: from sigma.octantis.com.au (ns2.octantis.com.au [207.44.189.124]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5348343D45 for ; Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:54:43 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@meijome.net) Received: (qmail 6734 invoked from network); 31 Aug 2005 22:54:42 +1000 Received: from 203-217-79-78.dyn.iinet.net.au (HELO ?192.168.13.3?) (203.217.79.78) by sigma.octantis.com.au with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 31 Aug 2005 22:54:42 +1000 Message-ID: <4315A889.4060400@meijome.net> Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:54:33 +1000 From: Norberto Meijome User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (Windows/20050716) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <20050831092718.GA887@twelvegates.homeip.net> In-Reply-To: <20050831092718.GA887@twelvegates.homeip.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: entropy X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:54:44 -0000 Hanspeter Roth wrote: > Hello, hello, grab a beverage and start reading ;) > > what is entropy for? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy > What are the consequences if one sets rc.conf/entropy_file and > rc.conf/entropy_dir to "NO"? $ grep entropy /etc/defaults/rc.conf entropy_file="/entropy" # Set to NO to disable caching entropy through reboots. # /var/db/entropy-file is preferred if / is not avail. entropy_dir="/var/db/entropy" # Set to NO to disable caching entropy via cron. entropy_save_sz="2048" # Size of the entropy cache files. entropy_save_num="8" # Number of entropy cache files to save. $ apropos entropy random(4) - the entropy device random_harvest(9) - gather entropy from the kernel for the entropy device RAND_add(3), RAND_seed(3), RAND_status(3), RAND_event(3), RAND_screen(3) - add entropy to the PRNG RAND_egd(3) - query entropy gathering daemon