ipsec_ranbits8
Generate random bits in ascii form
Usage
ipsec ranbits
[--quick]
[--continuous]
[--bytes]
nbits
Overview
Ranbits obtains nbits (rounded up to the nearest byte) high-quality random bits from random(4), and emits them on standard output as an ASCII string. The default output format is datatot(3) h format: lowercase hexadecimal with a 0x prefix and an underscore every 32 bits.
The --quick option produces quick-and-dirty random bits: instead of using the high-quality random bits from /dev/random, which may take some time to supply the necessary bits if nbits is large, ranbits uses /dev/urandom, which yields prompt results but lower-quality randomness.
The --continuous option uses datatot(3) x output format, like h but without the underscores.
The --bytes option causes nbits to be interpreted as a byte count rather than a bit count.
Files
/dev/random, /dev/urandom
Releases
4 releases since Debian 3.1 (Sarge); the text changed 2 times.