Solaris random device

[Andreas Pommer]

On May 12, Lars Hecking wrote:
[..]
>  But still, I'd like to hear some good arguments for using this device
>  at all. I am basically unclued about crypto, but I understand that a
>  "good" random source is instrumental. From a user perspective, is the
>  Solaris device appropriate? Is there a danger of creating weakly encrypted
>  files with it?

Currently it is more similar to the linux /dev/urandom , less to /dev/random.
At every call to the device some entropy is added (from a high resolution
timer, and sometimes process id) and subsequently mangled by some hash
algorithms (IIRC SHA?). Still todo: More entropy sources have to be added.
The solaris kstat interface provides access to a large number of kernel
counters which can be used for that purpose. However, the "good" ones
have to be determined.

>  Thanks a lot for being so helpful, guys, I really appreciate it!
>  (Ok with me if you want to move this discussion over to -users)

I didn't subscribe to users, maybe I should ...

Andreas