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Date:      Sat, 10 Nov 2007 21:58:23 -0500
From:      Chuck Robey <chuckr@chuckr.org>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: ' Openssl.cnf ' and ' .rand ' file
Message-ID:  <47366FCF.7060903@chuckr.org>
In-Reply-To: <20071111015823.GE6698@saraswathy.susmita.org>
References:  <846921.73269.qm@web34404.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20071111015823.GE6698@saraswathy.susmita.org>

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Girish Venkatachalam wrote:
> On 11:22:10 Nov 10, White Hat wrote:
>> openssl 0.9.7e-p1 25 Oct 2004
>>
>> I have not been able to find an answer to this question on Google, so I figured I had better ask it here.
>>  
>> In the '/etc/ssl/openssl.cnf' file, there is an entry for:
>>  
>>     RANDFILE    = $dir/private/.rand    # private random number file
>>  
>> Well, that file does not exist. I cannot find it anywhere on my system and I have not been able to figure out how to create it.
>>  
>> Also, where could I locate some information on the 'openssl.cnf' file. There does not appear to be a 'man' page for it. I would like some more information on what all of the settings mean and possibly how to set them for my particular needs.
> 
> Why do you want it?
> 
> You can use the openssl rand command for doing what you may be wanting
> to do.
> 
> $ openssl rand 10000
> 
> if you want binary output of length 10000 bytes or you can use the
> -base64 switch for ASCII output.
> 
> (You don't need the RANDFILE which is probably a seed or something)
> 
> Most parts of OpenSSL are not documented properly and the source code is
> immensely hard to follow.
> 
> I have worked with the guts of OpenSSL long ago and in spite of working
> with it for a long time, I have always found it hard to follow what
> happens where. :)

Well, that's a bit of a personal opinion, but have you even used the 
sclient and sserver functions of the openssl command?  Damn, but that's 
a fantastic debugging tool!  Nicely documented in the openssl man page, too.

> 
> The code is one of the most intricate uses of the wonderful C language.
> :)
> 
> Enjoy the fun! :)
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> regards,
> Girish
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