From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 19 14:24:28 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1465C16A474 for ; Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:24:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (dan.emsphone.com [199.67.51.101]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCC2743D6A for ; Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:24:22 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: (from dan@localhost) by dan.emsphone.com (8.13.1/8.13.4) id k5JEOMNR092606; Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:24:22 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dan) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:24:21 -0500 From: Dan Nelson To: "no@spam@mgedv.net" Message-ID: <20060619142421.GA9539@dan.emsphone.com> References: <000b01c693a6$32b31850$01010101@avalon.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <000b01c693a6$32b31850$01010101@avalon.lan> X-OS: FreeBSD 5.5-PRERELEASE X-message-flag: Outlook Error User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: random(4) confusions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:24:28 -0000 In the last episode (Jun 19), no@spam@mgedv.net said: > if i run man 4 random, i'll get the following: > > The kern.random.sys.burst variable instructs the kernel thread > that pro- cesses the harvest queue to tsleep(9) briefly after > that many events have been processed. This helps prevent the > random device from being so com- pute-bound that it takes over > all processing ability. A value of 0 (zero) is treated as > infinity, and will only allow the kernel to pause if the queue > is empty. Only values in the range [0..20] are accepted. > > if i try to read/set this setting, sysctl returns: > sysctl: unknown oid 'kern.random.sys.burst' > > what's wrong, my kernel or the manpage? > [6.1-RELEASE/i386] >From looking at commit logs, the manpage wasn't updated to remove the reference to that sysctl when it was obsoleted: RCS file: /home/ncvs/src/sys/dev/random/randomdev.c,v revision 1.45 date: 2003/11/17 23:02:21; author: markm; state: Exp; lines: +92 -101 Overhaul the entropy device: o There is no need to break up the event harvesting into ${burst} sized chunks, so retire that feature. -- Dan Nelson dnelson@allantgroup.com