Re: Inquiry about the removal of flag O_NONBLOCK on /dev/random

Guozihua (Scott)
2022-07-28T08:24:42Z

On 2022/7/26 19:33, Guozihua (Scott) wrote:
> On 2022/7/26 19:08, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 03:43:31PM +0800, Guozihua (Scott) wrote:
>>> Thanks for all the comments on this inquiry. Does the community has any
>>> channel to publishes changes like these? And will the man pages get
>>> updated? If so, are there any time frame?
>>
>> I was under the impression you were ultimately okay with the status quo.
>> Have I misunderstood you?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jason
>> .
>
> Hi Jason.
>
> To clarify, I does not have any issue with this change. I asked here
> only because I would like some background knowledge on this flag, to
> ensure I am on the same page as the community regarding this flag and
> the change. And it seems that I understands it correctly.
>
> However I do think it's a good idea to update the document soon to avoid
> any misunderstanding in the future.
>

Our colleague suggests that we should inform users clearly about the
change on the flag by returning -EINVAL when /dev/random gets this flag
during boot process. Otherwise programs might silently block for a long
time, causing other issues. Do you think this is a good way to prevent
similar issues on this flag?

--
Best
GUO Zihua