From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Sep 16 13:21:43 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C53DB16A418 for ; Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:21:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net) Received: from snoogles.rachie.is-a-geek.net (66-230-99-27-cdsl-rb1.nwc.acsalaska.net [66.230.99.27]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9067813C428 for ; Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:21:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by snoogles.rachie.is-a-geek.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8679E1CC97 for ; Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:21:42 -0800 (AKDT) From: Mel To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:21:38 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 References: <20070913153630.GA9448@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <20070916020126.06cf26ac@gumby.homeunix.com.> In-Reply-To: <20070916020126.06cf26ac@gumby.homeunix.com.> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200709161521.39955.fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net> Subject: Re: /dev/random question 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: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:21:43 -0000 On Sunday 16 September 2007 03:01:26 RW wrote: > Essentially what has happened is that /dev/random has been abandoned in > favour of a better /dev/urandom, and that seems to be a bit high-handed > to me. Not high-handed. Logical. The difference between /dev/random and /dev/urandom was that /dev/random could block IO if it didn't have enough entropy and /dev/urandom guaranteed to not block. The underlying algorithm creating the random was at the discretion of the implementers. So what you had was a highway (urandom) and a road with traffic lights (random). The need for the traffic lights has been removed, so there is no logic in not calling it a highway. People travelling the random road, will simply account for the possibility a traffic light comes up, which never does. -- Mel