NAME | DESCRIPTION | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

RANDOM(7)                 Linux Programmer's Manual                RANDOM(7)

NAME         top

       random - overview of interfaces for obtaining randomness

DESCRIPTION         top

       The kernel random-number generator relies on entropy gathered from
       device drivers and other sources of environmental noise to seed a
       cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator (CSPRNG).  It
       is designed 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
          random(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 getentropy(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
       sufficient 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 purposes.
       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
       probabilistic sampling will be slow.  Furthermore, it is unnecessary,
       because 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 generator 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
       final 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       │ Never blocks   │ Returns output     │
       │              │ output       │                │ from uninitialized │
       │              │              │                │ CSPRNG (may be low │
       │              │              │                │ entropy and        │
       │              │              │                │ unsuitable for     │
       │              │              │                │ cryptography)      │
       ├──────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────┤
       │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
       random  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         top

       getrandom(2), getauxval(3), getentropy(3), random(4), urandom(4),
       signal(7)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 4.12 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)

Pages that refer to this page: getrandom(2)getentropy(3)random(4)