diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | share/man/man9/random.9 | 44 |
1 files changed, 23 insertions, 21 deletions
diff --git a/share/man/man9/random.9 b/share/man/man9/random.9 index 17e2a54363f..aa4c9f4c3f1 100644 --- a/share/man/man9/random.9 +++ b/share/man/man9/random.9 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -.\" $OpenBSD: random.9,v 1.14 2003/04/17 13:41:30 mickey Exp $ +.\" $OpenBSD: random.9,v 1.15 2003/04/22 04:04:25 jmc Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1996,2000 Michael Shalayeff .\" All rights reserved. @@ -56,34 +56,36 @@ .Fn arc4random "void" .br .Sh DESCRIPTION -.Nm add_mouse_randomness , -.Nm add_tty_randomness , -.Nm add_net_randomness , -.Nm add_disk_randomness , -.Nm add_audio_randomness +The +.Fn add_mouse_randomness , +.Fn add_tty_randomness , +.Fn add_net_randomness , +.Fn add_disk_randomness +and +.Fn add_audio_randomness routines are used to supply data for the random data source device for further processing. The processing involves calculating inter-event time delta and measuring -entropy contained in the resulting delta-T, supplied in argument data -is just mixed into the pool and does not increase entropy counter. -.br -.Nm add_true_randomness -does not involve usual timing calculations -and causes supplied data argument added to the entropy pool +entropy contained in the resulting delta-T; the argument data supplied +is just mixed into the pool and does not increase the entropy counter. +.Pp +.Fn add_true_randomness +does not involve the usual timing calculations, +and causes the supplied data argument to be added to the entropy pool, increasing the entropy counter by 32 bits. -.br -.Nm add_timer_randomness -will not cause entropy counter to rise, it -is used to change the state of the pool periodically mostly -by meaning of timing random driver's operations. .Pp -.Nm get_random_bytes +.Fn add_timer_randomness +will not cause the entropy counter to rise. +It is used to change the state of the pool periodically, +mostly by means of timing the random driver's operations. +.Pp +.Fn get_random_bytes may be used to retrieve strong random data, just -as it would by +as it would by the .Xr srandom 4 device. -.br -.Nm arc4random +.Pp +.Fn arc4random will give random 32 bit numbers hashed with the ARC4 algorithm, which appears to be faster and less abusive to the entropy pool. |