From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 23 23:35:04 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EAA7716A494 for ; Fri, 23 Jun 2006 23:35:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dougb@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mail2.fluidhosting.com (mx21.fluidhosting.com [204.14.89.4]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5A62043D45 for ; Fri, 23 Jun 2006 23:35:04 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dougb@FreeBSD.org) Received: (qmail 24736 invoked by uid 399); 23 Jun 2006 23:35:03 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO ?192.168.0.6?) (dougb@dougbarton.us@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 23 Jun 2006 23:35:03 -0000 Message-ID: <449C7A9C.2000009@FreeBSD.org> Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:34:52 -0700 From: Doug Barton Organization: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (Windows/20060516) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alexander Leidinger References: <20060623210740.6fb370bd@Magellan.Leidinger.net> In-Reply-To: <20060623210740.6fb370bd@Magellan.Leidinger.net> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The fortune(6) / random problem (again) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 23:35:05 -0000 Alexander Leidinger wrote: > Hi, > > this was discussed a while ago (and I don't remember the ... > status-quo), but with a recent current I see non-random output of > fortune when using non standard files: I do something vaguely similar to what you're doing, which is to point fortune at a directory of symlinks to various fortune files (see man page for why that works). My -current is as of 6/19 and I'm not seeing this behavior, FYI. (I'd actually be sort of interested to see if you get the same results using this method as you do specifying files on the command line.) FWIW, I did see problems back when this last came up, but for an entirely different reason. It turns out that there were stale fortune files in /usr/share/games/fortune that were causing problems. Depending on your upgrading habits, you might try something like: find /usr/share/games/fortune/ -type f ! -newer /usr/src/README and see if anything interesting turns up. Not sure about your other directories though. Finally, the obvious thing to check would be that your /dev/random device is being properly seeded. Check 'sysctl kern.random.sys.harvest' and make sure at least one of those is set to 1. You can also run: rndc-confgen -b512 -c ./rndc-key -a -r/dev/random multiple times to see if you've got a good supply of random bits. You should be able to run that command at least 10 times without it blocking. If you can't, you've got /dev/random issues. hth, Doug -- This .signature sanitized for your protection