[Andries Brower CCed since he may have written the original text] > Package: manpages-dev > Version: 2.02-2 > Severity: minor > > Man page for rand(3) claims the following: > > FreeBSD adds a function > > void sranddev(void); > > that initializes the seed for their bad random generator rand() > with > a value obtained from their good random generator random(). > Strange. > > This implies that FreeBSD's sranddev() uses the output of random() to > seed > rand's PRNG. If that were the case, it would indeed be "strange", since > random(3) is merely an entry point to another generator, which also needs > to be seeded, which would make sranddev useless. > > But that is, of course, not the case. From the FreeBSD manual: > > The sranddev() function initializes a seed using the random(4) > random > number device which returns good random numbers, suitable for > crypto- > graphic use. > > That makes a lot more sense: sranddev seeds rand's PRNG from the random > number *device* which gets entropy from the system's physical interfaces. > random(4) referred to here is the random *device* which has nothing to do > with the random() *function* (which would be referred to as random(3)).
Hrvoje, I see two possible ways of dealing with this: 1. s/random()/random(4)/ in the Linux page. 2. Simply remove this text from the page. What do you think? Cheers, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 Want to help with man page maintenance? Grab the latest tarball at ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/manpages/ and grep the source files for 'FIXME'. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
