cvs commit: src/games/fortune/strfile strfile.c

Fri Aug 8 21:00:19 UTC 2008

On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 09:43:29PM +0100, David Malone wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 12:21:50AM -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> > This does beg the question why we need cryptographically secure
> > randomness for fortune, however...
> 
> I seem to remember us catching a /dev/random related bug because
> fortune displayed the same quote too often. Something to do with
> seeding maybe?

It was random kernel module bug fixed long time ago (perhaps due to 
furtune help :)

Speking in general, now even in the situation when absolutely no random 
enthropy available at the call moment (very unlikely because of disks or 
net etc. activity), kernel PRNG seeded with time, so plays not worse that 
old time+getpid seeding used everywhere counting the fact that pids are 
sequentual during the boot so it is better not relay on them.

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