Re: random device?

[Rian Hunter]

I have a initial working implementiaiton of solution one, because it
seemed more favorable. The release is very sloppy, so if you have
trouble getting it to work, just ask. You can download it here:

http://www.thelaststop.net/files/random-egd.tar.gz

I had to modify egd.pl a little, so please use the release include with
my tar. There are a few more features i need to add to both egd and the
translator:

egd.pl:
- add a pool dump for entropy sustainment across downloads.

translator:
- fix write interface for addition to the entropy pool.

The translator works pretty similar to the /dev/random and /dev/urandom
device seen on Linux/*BSD. /dev/random only gives limited output based
on the pool, and /dev/urandom gives unlimited random output. Similarly
to the Linux/*BSD devices both devices use the same entropy pool
(actually any translator started uses the same entropy pool).

Tell me what you think, comments, criticicms. Anything is possible
egd.pl is very easy to hack. Once again I do think that this completely
user-space random device is the best solution for now, even though it's
not as powerful as it's Linux/*BSD. L4 has userspace interrupts, so
theoretically once Hurd is ported to L4, a user-space translator/daemon
comparible to that of Linux/*BSD (they all use the same implemenation)
will be possible.
-rian