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RANDOM(4) Linux Programmer's Manual RANDOM(4) NAME random, urandom - kernel random number source devices SYNOPSIS #include <linux/random.h> int ioctl(fd, RNDrequest, param); DESCRIPTION The character special files /dev/random and /dev/urandom (present since Linux 1.3.30) provide an interface to the kernel's random number gener- ator. The file /dev/random has major device number 1 and minor device number 8. The file /dev/urandom has major device number 1 and minor device number 9. The random number generator gathers environmental noise from device drivers and other sources into an entropy pool. The generator also keeps an estimate of the number of bits of noise in the entropy pool. From this entropy pool, random numbers are created. Linux 3.17 and later provides the simpler and safer getrandom(2) inter- face which requires no special files; see the getrandom(2) manual page for details. When read, the /dev/urandom device returns random bytes using a pseudo- random number generator seeded from the entropy pool. Reads from this device do not block (i.e., the CPU is not yielded), but can incur an appreciable delay when requesting large amounts of data. When read during early boot time, /dev/urandom may return data prior to the entropy pool being initialized. If this is of concern in your ap- plication, use getrandom(2) or /dev/random instead. The /dev/random device is a legacy interface which dates back to a time where the cryptographic primitives used in the implementation of /dev/urandom were not widely trusted. It will return random bytes only within the estimated number of bits of fresh noise in the entropy pool, blocking if necessary. /dev/random is suitable for applications that need high quality randomness, and can afford indeterminate delays. When the entropy pool is empty, reads from /dev/random will block until additional environmental noise is gathered. If open(2) is called for /dev/random with the O_NONBLOCK flag, a subsequent read(2) will not block if the requested number of bytes is not available. Instead, the available bytes are returned. If no byte is available, read(2) will return -1 and errno will be set to EAGAIN. The O_NONBLOCK flag has no effect when opening /dev/urandom. When calling read(2) for the device /dev/urandom, reads of up to 256 bytes will return as many bytes as are requested and will not be interrupted by a signal handler. Reads with a buffer over this limit may return less than the requested number of bytes or fail with the error EINTR, if interrupted by a signal handler. Since Linux 3.16, a read(2) from /dev/urandom will return at most 32 MB. A read(2) from /dev/random will return at most 512 bytes (340 bytes on Linux kernels before version 2.6.12). Writing to /dev/random or /dev/urandom will update the entropy pool with the data written, but this will not result in a higher entropy count. This means that it will impact the contents read from both files, but it will not make reads from /dev/random faster. Usage The /dev/random interface is considered a legacy interface, and /dev/urandom is preferred and sufficient in all use cases, with the ex- ception of applications which require randomness during early boot time; for these applications, getrandom(2) must be used instead, be- cause it will block until the entropy pool is initialized. If a seed file is saved across reboots as recommended below, the output is cryptographically secure against attackers without local root access as soon as it is reloaded in the boot sequence, and perfectly adequate for network encryption session keys. (All major Linux distributions have saved the seed file across reboots since 2000 at least.) Since reads from /dev/random may block, users will usually want to open it in nonblocking mode (or perform a read with timeout), and provide some sort of user notification if the desired entropy is not immediately available. Configuration If your system does not have /dev/random and /dev/urandom created al- ready, they can be created with the following commands: mknod -m 666 /dev/random c 1 8 mknod -m 666 /dev/urandom c 1 9 chown root:root /dev/random /dev/urandom When a Linux system starts up without much operator interaction, the entropy pool may be in a fairly predictable state. This reduces the actual amount of noise in the entropy pool below the estimate. In or- der to counteract this effect, it helps to carry entropy pool informa- tion across shut-downs and start-ups. To do this, add the lines to an appropriate script which is run during the Linux system start-up se- quence: echo "Initializing random number generator..." random_seed=/var/run/random-seed # Carry a random seed from start-up to start-up # Load and then save the whole entropy pool if [ -f $random_seed ]; then cat $random_seed >/dev/urandom else touch $random_seed fi chmod 600 $random_seed poolfile=/proc/sys/kernel/random/poolsize [ -r $poolfile ] && bits=$(cat $poolfile) || bits=4096 bytes=$(expr $bits / 8) dd if=/dev/urandom of=$random_seed count=1 bs=$bytes Also, add the following lines in an appropriate script which is run during the Linux system shutdown: # Carry a random seed from shut-down to start-up # Save the whole entropy pool echo "Saving random seed..." random_seed=/var/run/random-seed touch $random_seed chmod 600 $random_seed poolfile=/proc/sys/kernel/random/poolsize [ -r $poolfile ] && bits=$(cat $poolfile) || bits=4096 bytes=$(expr $bits / 8) dd if=/dev/urandom of=$random_seed count=1 bs=$bytes In the above examples, we assume Linux 2.6.0 or later, where /proc/sys/kernel/random/poolsize returns the size of the entropy pool in bits (see below). /proc interfaces The files in the directory /proc/sys/kernel/random (present since 2.3.16) provide additional information about the /dev/random device: entropy_avail This read-only file gives the available entropy, in bits. This will be a number in the range 0 to 4096. poolsize This file gives the size of the entropy pool. The semantics of this file vary across kernel versions: Linux 2.4: This file gives the size of the entropy pool in bytes. Normally, this file will have the value 512, but it is writable, and can be changed to any value for which an algorithm is available. The choices are 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048. Linux 2.6 and later: This file is read-only, and gives the size of the entropy pool in bits. It contains the value 4096. read_wakeup_threshold This file contains the number of bits of entropy required for waking up processes that sleep waiting for entropy from /dev/random. The default is 64. write_wakeup_threshold This file contains the number of bits of entropy below which we wake up processes that do a select(2) or poll(2) for write ac- cess to /dev/random. These values can be changed by writing to the files. uuid and boot_id These read-only files contain random strings like 6fd5a44b-35f4-4ad4-a9b9-6b9be13e1fe9. The former is generated afresh for each read, the latter was generated once. ioctl(2) interface The following ioctl(2) requests are defined on file descriptors con- nected to either /dev/random or /dev/urandom. All requests performed will interact with the input entropy pool impacting both /dev/random and /dev/urandom. The CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability is required for all re- quests except RNDGETENTCNT. RNDGETENTCNT Retrieve the entropy count of the input pool, the contents will be the same as the entropy_avail file under proc. The result will be stored in the int pointed to by the argument. RNDADDTOENTCNT Increment or decrement the entropy count of the input pool by the value pointed to by the argument. RNDGETPOOL Removed in Linux 2.6.9. RNDADDENTROPY Add some additional entropy to the input pool, incrementing the entropy count. This differs from writing to /dev/random or /dev/urandom, which only adds some data but does not increment the entropy count. The following structure is used: struct rand_pool_info { int entropy_count; int buf_size; __u32 buf[0]; }; Here entropy_count is the value added to (or subtracted from) the entropy count, and buf is the buffer of size buf_size which gets added to the entropy pool. RNDZAPENTCNT, RNDCLEARPOOL Zero the entropy count of all pools and add some system data (such as wall clock) to the pools. FILES /dev/random /dev/urandom NOTES For an overview and comparison of the various interfaces that can be used to obtain randomness, see random(7). BUGS During early boot time, reads from /dev/urandom may return data prior to the entropy pool being initialized. SEE ALSO mknod(1), getrandom(2), random(7) RFC 1750, "Randomness Recommendations for Security" COLOPHON This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/. Linux 2017-09-15 RANDOM(4) RANDOM(7) Linux Programmer's Manual RANDOM(7) NAME random - overview of interfaces for obtaining randomness DESCRIPTION The kernel random-number generator relies on entropy gathered from de- vice drivers and other sources of environmental noise to seed a crypto- graphically secure pseudorandom number generator (CSPRNG). It is de- signed for security, rather than speed. The following interfaces provide access to output from the kernel CSPRNG: * The /dev/urandom and /dev/random devices, both described in ran- dom(4). These devices have been present on Linux since early times, and are also available on many other systems. * The Linux-specific getrandom(2) system call, available since Linux 3.17. This system call provides access either to the same source as /dev/urandom (called the urandom source in this page) or to the same source as /dev/random (called the random source in this page). The default is the urandom source; the random source is selected by specifying the GRND_RANDOM flag to the system call. (The geten- tropy(3) function provides a slightly more portable interface on top of getrandom(2).) Initialization of the entropy pool The kernel collects bits of entropy from the environment. When a suf- ficient number of random bits has been collected, the entropy pool is considered to be initialized. Choice of random source Unless you are doing long-term key generation (and most likely not even then), you probably shouldn't be reading from the /dev/random device or employing getrandom(2) with the GRND_RANDOM flag. Instead, either read from the /dev/urandom device or employ getrandom(2) without the GRND_RANDOM flag. The cryptographic algorithms used for the urandom source are quite conservative, and so should be sufficient for all pur- poses. The disadvantage of GRND_RANDOM and reads from /dev/random is that the operation can block for an indefinite period of time. Furthermore, dealing with the partially fulfilled requests that can occur when using GRND_RANDOM or when reading from /dev/random increases code complexity. Monte Carlo and other probabilistic sampling applications Using these interfaces to provide large quantities of data for Monte Carlo simulations or other programs/algorithms which are doing proba- bilistic sampling will be slow. Furthermore, it is unnecessary, be- cause such applications do not need cryptographically secure random numbers. Instead, use the interfaces described in this page to obtain a small amount of data to seed a user-space pseudorandom number genera- tor for use by such applications. Comparison between getrandom, /dev/urandom, and /dev/random The following table summarizes the behavior of the various interfaces that can be used to obtain randomness. GRND_NONBLOCK is a flag that can be used to control the blocking behavior of getrandom(2). The fi- nal column of the table considers the case that can occur in early boot time when the entropy pool is not yet initialized. +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ |Interface | Pool | Blocking | Behavior when pool | | | | behavior | is not yet ready | +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ |/dev/random | Blocking | If entropy too | Blocks until | | | pool | low, blocks | enough entropy | | | | until there is | gathered | | | | enough entropy | | | | | again | | +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ |/dev/urandom | CSPRNG out- | Never blocks | Returns output | | | put | | from uninitialized | | | | | CSPRNG (may be low | | | | | entropy and un- | | | | | suitable for cryp- | | | | | tography) | +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ |getrandom() | Same as | Does not block | Blocks until pool | | | /dev/urandom | once is pool | ready | | | | ready | | +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ |getrandom() | Same as | If entropy too | Blocks until pool | |GRND_RANDOM | /dev/random | low, blocks | ready | | | | until there is | | | | | enough entropy | | | | | again | | +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ |getrandom() | Same as | Does not block | EAGAIN | |GRND_NONBLOCK | /dev/urandom | once is pool | | | | | ready | | +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ |getrandom() | Same as | EAGAIN if not | EAGAIN | |GRND_RANDOM + | /dev/random | enough entropy | | |GRND_NONBLOCK | | available | | +--------------+--------------+----------------+--------------------+ Generating cryptographic keys The amount of seed material required to generate a cryptographic key equals the effective key size of the key. For example, a 3072-bit RSA or Diffie-Hellman private key has an effective key size of 128 bits (it requires about 2^128 operations to break) so a key generator needs only 128 bits (16 bytes) of seed material from /dev/random. While some safety margin above that minimum is reasonable, as a guard against flaws in the CSPRNG algorithm, no cryptographic primitive available today can hope to promise more than 256 bits of security, so if any program reads more than 256 bits (32 bytes) from the kernel ran- dom pool per invocation, or per reasonable reseed interval (not less than one minute), that should be taken as a sign that its cryptography is not skillfully implemented. SEE ALSO getrandom(2), getauxval(3), getentropy(3), random(4), urandom(4), sig- nal(7) COLOPHON This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/. Linux 2017-03-13 RANDOM(7)
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