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Date:      Sat, 13 Jan 2001 17:19:35 +0200
From:      Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>
To:        Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        Warner Losh <imp@harmony.village.org>, Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/etc crontab rc src/etc/defaults rc.conf src/etc/mtree BSD.root.dist src/libexec Makefile src/libexec/save-entropy Makefile save-entropy.sh 
Message-ID:  <200101131519.f0DFJhI20323@gratis.grondar.za>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1010113095651.21474B-100000@fledge.watson.org> ; from Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>  "Sat, 13 Jan 2001 10:02:36 EST."
References:  <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1010113095651.21474B-100000@fledge.watson.org> 

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> I seems to me that perhaps part of the problem is the /dev/random
> interface.  I'm not very familiar with it, but it seems like a couple of
> basic primitives might address a lot of the problems:
> 
>    Ways to get and set the current "randomness qualiy" with appropriate
>    privilege.  The system boots with low, and later trips to high.

Wrong.

It boots at "off" and flips to "on" when a reseed happens. There is only
one quality.

("off" == "no random numbers"; "on" == "random numbers").

The squealers (who don't like the "off" == block until "on") have the
option to not know when the "off" --> "on" transition happens and
have the setting always "on".

<repeat iteration=$BIGNUM>
When the high-rate harvesters go in (after the preemptive threading),
the "off" --> "on" transition will happen within a couple of seconds,
and will no longer be a problem.
</repeat>

M
-- 
Mark Murray
Warning: this .sig is umop ap!sdn


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