xref: /openbsd/share/man/man4/random.4 (revision cecf84d4)
1.\"	$OpenBSD: random.4,v 1.30 2014/01/23 05:14:44 tedu Exp $
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3.\" Copyright (c) 1996, 1997 Michael Shalayeff
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26.Dd $Mdocdate: January 23 2014 $
27.Dt RANDOM 4
28.Os
29.Sh NAME
30.Nm random ,
31.Nm arandom
32.Nd random data source devices
33.Sh SYNOPSIS
34.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
35.Fd #include <dev/rndvar.h>
36.Sh DESCRIPTION
37The various
38.Nm
39devices produce high quality random output data.
40Entropy data is collected from system activity (such as disk, network,
41and clock device interrupts), and then used to key the
42ChaCha stream cipher to generate the output.
43All the random devices are expected to provide high quality
44pseudo-random output data.
45.Pp
46The
47.Xr arc4random 3
48function in userland libraries should be used instead, as it works
49without the need to access these devices every time.
50.Sh FILES
51.Bl -tag -width /dev/arandom -compact
52.It Pa /dev/random
53.It Pa /dev/arandom
54.El
55.Sh SEE ALSO
56.Xr arc4random 3 ,
57.Xr md5 3 ,
58.Xr random 3 ,
59.Xr amdpm 4 ,
60.Xr glxsb 4 ,
61.Xr pchb 4 ,
62.Xr arc4random 9 ,
63.Xr md5 9
64.Sh HISTORY
65A
66.Nm
67device first appeared in the Linux operating system.
68This is a cloned interface.
69.Pp
70ARC4 routines added by David Mazieres.
71Changed to use the ChaCha cipher in
72.Ox 5.5 .
73.Sh BUGS
74No randomness testing suite provided.
75