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More information to the important issue of seeding the PRNG
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Lutz Jänicke committed Nov 11, 2002
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2 changes: 2 additions & 0 deletions FAQ
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Expand Up @@ -226,6 +226,8 @@ support can be found at
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/retrieve.pl?doc=fsrdb/27606&zone_32=SUNWski
However, be warned that /dev/random is usually a blocking device, which
may have some effects on OpenSSL.
A third party /dev/random solution for Solaris is available at
http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~andi/


* Why do I get an "unable to write 'random state'" error message?
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12 changes: 12 additions & 0 deletions INSTALL
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Expand Up @@ -296,3 +296,15 @@
targets for shared library creation, like linux-shared. Those targets
can currently be used on their own just as well, but this is expected
to change in future versions of OpenSSL.

Note on random number generation
--------------------------------

Availability of cryptographically secure random numbers is required for
secret key generation. OpenSSL provides several options to seed the
internal PRNG. If not properly seeded, the internal PRNG will refuse
to deliver random bytes and a "PRNG not seeded error" will occur.
On systems without /dev/urandom (or similar) device, it may be necessary
to install additional support software to obtain random seed.
Please check out the manual pages for RAND_add(), RAND_bytes(), RAND_egd(),
and the FAQ for more information.

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