From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261304AbUK0TVO (ORCPT ); Sat, 27 Nov 2004 14:21:14 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261308AbUK0TVO (ORCPT ); Sat, 27 Nov 2004 14:21:14 -0500 Received: from abraham.CS.Berkeley.EDU ([128.32.37.170]:16136 "EHLO abraham.cs.berkeley.edu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261304AbUK0TVL (ORCPT ); Sat, 27 Nov 2004 14:21:11 -0500 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Path: not-for-mail From: daw@taverner.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) Newsgroups: isaac.lists.linux-kernel Subject: Re: no entropy and no output at /dev/random (quick question) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:20:28 +0000 (UTC) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Distribution: isaac Message-ID: References: <41A7EDA1.5000609@migraciones.gov.ar> <41A804CD.5070007@migraciones.gov.ar> Reply-To: daw-usenet@taverner.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) NNTP-Posting-Host: taverner.cs.berkeley.edu X-Trace: abraham.cs.berkeley.edu 1101583228 29658 128.32.168.222 (27 Nov 2004 19:20:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@abraham.cs.berkeley.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:20:28 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: daw@taverner.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Javier Villavicencio wrote: >it's encouraged to use /dev/urandom instead of /dev/random? Yes, for almost all purposes, applications should use /dev/urandom, not /dev/random. (The names for these devices are unfortunate.) Sadly, many applications fail to follow these rules, and consequently /dev/random's entropy pool often ends up getting depleted much faster than it has to be.