Re: faster /dev/random

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Tim <ignored_mailbox@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> On Sat, 2010-08-21 at 23:43 -0500, Thomas Cameron wrote:
>> I've always heard that you can get faster random numbers by generating
>> a lot of interrupts.  I usually do something like
>> run /etc/cron.daily/mlocate to generate a lot of disk activity.
>
> I've always wondered whether that would provide it with real random
> seeding, or seeding with a pattern that might be determinable.  After
> all, you're basing it on the disk contents.

Now that you mention it, I wonder how that works too.

The inter-interupt timing for the disk will probably also be quite
biased.  Interrupts that come at a one per sector rate will probably
have strong spikes in their probability functions for "(rotation-time /
number-of-sectors-per-track)".  Even with disk zones, there probably
won't be that many different sectors-per-track values.

-wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht      http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/      (IPv6-only)
-- 
users mailing list
users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe or change subscription options:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users
Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines

[Index of Archives]     [Older Fedora Users]     [Fedora Announce]     [Fedora Package Announce]     [EPEL Announce]     [EPEL Devel]     [Fedora Magazine]     [Fedora Summer Coding]     [Fedora Laptop]     [Fedora Cloud]     [Fedora Advisory Board]     [Fedora Education]     [Fedora Security]     [Fedora Scitech]     [Fedora Robotics]     [Fedora Infrastructure]     [Fedora Websites]     [Anaconda Devel]     [Fedora Devel Java]     [Fedora Desktop]     [Fedora Fonts]     [Fedora Marketing]     [Fedora Management Tools]     [Fedora Mentors]     [Fedora Package Review]     [Fedora R Devel]     [Fedora PHP Devel]     [Kickstart]     [Fedora Music]     [Fedora Packaging]     [Fedora SELinux]     [Fedora Legal]     [Fedora Kernel]     [Fedora OCaml]     [Coolkey]     [Virtualization Tools]     [ET Management Tools]     [Yum Users]     [Yosemite News]     [Gnome Users]     [KDE Users]     [Fedora Art]     [Fedora Docs]     [Fedora Sparc]     [Libvirt Users]     [Fedora ARM]

  Powered by Linux