Hello Jon, On 23 July 2010 at 02:18, Jon Jensen <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Patch against Git HEAD, based on others' comments on the web and empirical > observation just reading the file repeatedly. > > It contains the number of bits of currently available entropy, > not always the pool size of 4096. > --- > man4/random.4 | 4 ++-- > 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) > > diff --git a/man4/random.4 b/man4/random.4 > index 2307e07..b097b6d 100644 > --- a/man4/random.4 > +++ b/man4/random.4 > @@ -177,9 +177,9 @@ and can be changed to any value for which an algorithm > is available. > The choices are 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048. > .TP > Linux 2.6: > -This file is read-only, and gives the size of the entropy pool in > +This file is read-only, and gives the amount of available entropy in > .IR bits . > -It contains the value 4096. > +The value will range from 0 to 4096 in a standard kernel. > .RE > .LP > The file > -- > 1.7.1.86.g0e460 Your email fell on the floor a few years ago. Sorry about that... Long after the fact, I've applied a slightly different patch: diff --git a/man4/random.4 b/man4/random.4 index d4bd03f..4dbf585 100644 --- a/man4/random.4 +++ b/man4/random.4 @@ -213,9 +213,8 @@ The files in the directory device: .TP .I entropy_avail -This read-only file gives the available entropy. -Normally, this will be 4096 (bits), -a full entropy pool. +This read-only file gives the available entropy, in bits. +This will be a number in the range 0 to 4096. .TP .I poolsize This file Cheers, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
