Re: /dev/random in 2.4.6

Richard B. Johnson (root@chaos.analogic.com)
Wed, 15 Aug 2001 11:21:15 -0400 (EDT)


On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Steve Hill wrote:

>
> Until recently I've been using the 2.2.16 kernel on Cobalt Qube 3's, but
> I've just upgraded to 2.4.6. Since there's no mouse, keyboard, etc, there
> isn't much entropy data. I had no problem getting plenty of data from
> /dev/random under 2.2, but under 2.4.6 there seems to be a distinct lack
> of data - it takes absolutely ages to extract about 256 bytes from it
> (whereas under 2.2 it was relatively quick). Has there been a major
> change in the way the random number generator works under 2.4?
>
> --
>

Same problem on 2.4.1. The first 512 bytes comes right away if
/dev/random hasn't been accessed since boot, then the rest trickles
a few words per second.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.4.1 on an i686 machine (799.53 BogoMips).

I was going to compile a list of innovations that could be
attributed to Microsoft. Once I realized that Ctrl-Alt-Del
was handled in the BIOS, I found that there aren't any.

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