xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/random_harvest.9 (revision c17d43407fe04133a94055b0dbc7ea8965654a9f)
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\"
28.Dd February 6, 2002
29.Dt RANDOM_HARVEST 9
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm random_harvest
33.Nd gather entropy from the kernel for the entropy device
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.In sys/random.h
36.Ft void
37.Fo random_harvest
38.Fa "void *entropy"
39.Fa "u_int size"
40.Fa "u_int bits"
41.Fa "u_int frac"
42.Fa "enum esource source"
43.Fc
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45The
46.Fn random_harvest
47function is used by device drivers
48and other kernel processes to pass data
49that is considered (at least partially) stochastic
50to the entropy device.
51.Pp
52The caller should pass a pointer (to no more than 16 bytes) of
53the
54.Dq random
55data in
56.Fa entropy .
57The argument
58.Fa size
59contains the number of bytes pointed to.
60The caller should
61.Em "very conservatively"
62estimate the number of random bits
63in the sample,
64and pass this in
65.Fa bits
66or
67.Fa frac .
68If the estimated number of bits per sample is an integer, then
69.Fa bits
70is used, and
71.Fa frac
72is 0.
73Otherwise,
74for low-entropy samples,
75.Dq fractional
76entropy can be supplied in
77.Fa frac .
78(This is considered to be
79.Fa frac /
801024 bits of entropy.)
81The
82.Fa source
83is chosen from
84.Dv RANDOM_WRITE , RANDOM_KEYBOARD , RANDOM_MOUSE , RANDOM_NET
85and
86.Dv RANDOM_INTERRUPT ,
87and is used to indicate the source of the entropy.
88.Pp
89Interrupt harvesting has been simplified
90for the kernel programmer.
91If a device driver registers an interrupt handler
92with
93.Xr BUS_SETUP_INTR 9
94or
95.Xr bus_setup_intr 9 ,
96then it is only necessary to
97include the
98.Dv INTR_ENTROPY
99bit in the
100.Fa flags
101argument to have that interrupt source
102be used for entropy harvesting.
103.Sh SEE ALSO
104.Xr random 4 ,
105.Xr BUS_SETUP_INTR 9
106.Sh AUTHORS
107The
108.Fx
109.Xr random 4
110entropy device and supporting documentation was written by
111.An Mark R V Murray .
112