update and refine to reflect current status and best practices.

1 files changed, 9 insertions, 11 deletions

diff --git a/share/man/man4/random.4 b/share/man/man4/random.4
index 066d12cd4fe..e79a96b1ce5 100644
--- a/share/man/man4/random.4
+++ b/share/man/man4/random.4
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.\"	$OpenBSD: random.4,v 1.29 2011/01/11 15:26:05 deraadt Exp $
+.\"	$OpenBSD: random.4,v 1.30 2014/01/23 05:14:44 tedu Exp $
 .\"
 .\" Copyright (c) 1996, 1997 Michael Shalayeff
 .\"
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
 .\" SUCH DAMAGE.
 .\"
-.Dd $Mdocdate: January 11 2011 $
+.Dd $Mdocdate: January 23 2014 $
 .Dt RANDOM 4
 .Os
 .Sh NAME
@@ -37,20 +37,16 @@
 The various
 .Nm
 devices produce high quality random output data.
-Entropy data is collected from system activity (like disk, network,
-and clock device interrupts and such), and then run through various
-hash or message digest functions to generate the output.
+Entropy data is collected from system activity (such as disk, network,
+and clock device interrupts), and then used to key the
+ChaCha stream cipher to generate the output.
 All the random devices are expected to provide high quality
 pseudo-random output data.
 .Pp
 The
 .Xr arc4random 3
-function in userland libraries seeds itself from this device (or with
-the
-.Xr sysctl 3
-interface),
-providing a second level of ARC4 hashed data without the need to access
-these devices every time.
+function in userland libraries should be used instead, as it works
+without the need to access these devices every time.
 .Sh FILES
 .Bl -tag -width /dev/arandom -compact
 .It Pa /dev/random
@@ -72,5 +68,7 @@ device first appeared in the Linux operating system.
 This is a cloned interface.
 .Pp
 ARC4 routines added by David Mazieres.
+Changed to use the ChaCha cipher in
+.Ox 5.5 .
 .Sh BUGS
 No randomness testing suite provided.