From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 16 23:07:36 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B07E106564A for ; Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:07:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from asmtpout030.mac.com (asmtpout030.mac.com [17.148.16.105]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6451A8FC1A for ; Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:07:36 +0000 (UTC) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Received: from cswiger1.apple.com ([17.209.4.71]) by asmtp030.mac.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-8.01 (built Dec 16 2008; 32bit)) with ESMTPSA id <0L4400KQRQWNPH20@asmtp030.mac.com> for ports@freebsd.org; Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:07:35 -0700 (PDT) X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=6.0.2-1004200000 definitions=main-1006160164 X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=1.12.8161:2.4.5,1.2.40,4.0.166 definitions=2010-06-16_03:2010-02-06, 2010-06-16, 2010-06-16 signatures=0 From: Chuck Swiger In-reply-to: <20100617000106.2db70cb4@gumby.homeunix.com> Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:07:34 -0700 Message-id: <732B2687-76E1-4693-8658-1C3C9B142542@mac.com> References: <20100617000106.2db70cb4@gumby.homeunix.com> To: RW X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081) Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: apr ports devrandom option X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:07:36 -0000 On Jun 16, 2010, at 4:01 PM, RW wrote: > The devel/apr* ports have an option to use /dev/random, which is on by > default. > > I was wondering under what circumstances anyone would turn that off. As > far as I can see switching it off doesn't replace /dev/random with > anything else. On some platforms, /dev/random and /dev/urandom used to provide different quality of random numbers-- FreeBSD simply uses Yarrow or a hardware RNG source if available. Even if you disable it, it's likely to just fall back to OpenSSL's source of random numbers, which probably is /dev/random anyway.... Regards, -- -Chuck