openssh unix dev - Nov 2000 - Free Sun patch 105710-01 provides /dev/random on Solaris (fwd)

Can anyone verify this and provide a URL for the docs?

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 11:18:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Mixmaster <mixmaster at remail.obscura.com>
Reply-To: openssl-users at openssl.org
To: openssl-users at openssl.org
Subject: Free Sun patch 105710-01 provides /dev/random on Solaris

Several people have been looking for Sun's /dev/random patch and haven't
been able to find it...

Sun's patch 105710-01 is available for free download and includes their
/dev/random equivalent for SPARC architectures.

The patch is actually a bunch of packages to patch up their web server
product.  One of the packages is the SUNWski package which includes their
"cryptorand" random number generator.  The cryptorand daemon hooks
itself
up to a named fifo.  The name of the fifo defaults to /dev/random but it
can easily be changed by editing the cryotrand startup script in /etc/init.d/.
Presumably if it were changed to /dev/urandom, OpenSSL would use it by
default.

If you just want cryptorand and not the "skiserv" daemon that's in
the
same package, you can pick the parts you want out of the "reloc"
directory
and copy them into place by hand.

Haven't tried it.  If it works for anyone, please post the story.

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At 07:41 PM 11/11/2000, you wrote:
 >Can anyone verify this and provide a URL for the docs?
 >

You can get it via SunSolve,
ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/105710-01.tar.Z.

There are a few catches, mind you.
1)  The patch in question only works for SunOS 5.5.1 and 5.6
2)  This patch is the international version, I don't
       think it matters one bit for the /dev/random functionality tho.

The patch contains multiple Solaris packages, you only
need to install SUNWski, however.  The only file you truly
need in the package is /usr/lib/security/cryptorand, the
rest is fluff.  You also need the /var/etc directory to exist.

I've been using the /dev/random thing for months now and it
works great.  One thing that concerns me is the "randomness"
of the data, better than nothing I guess.  I tried calling up Sun
(with my platinum support no less) and they were completely
clueless about the whole /dev/random thing and only after
several days were they able to find any reference to it.  So I
reckon asking them about the "randomness" would be an excercise
in futility.


Jason Fortezzo
fortezzo at directlink.net
PGP Key: http://mysite.directlink.net/fortezzo/pgpkey
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