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man:getrandom

GETRANDOM(2) Linux Programmer's Manual GETRANDOM(2)

NAME

     getrandom - obtain a series of random bytes

SYNOPSIS

     #include <sys/random.h>
     ssize_t getrandom(void *buf, size_t buflen, unsigned int flags);

DESCRIPTION

     The  getrandom() system call fills the buffer pointed to by buf with up
     to buflen random bytes.  These bytes can be  used  to  seed  user-space
     random number generators or for cryptographic purposes.
     By  default,  getrandom()  draws entropy from the urandom source (i.e.,
     the same source as the /dev/urandom  device).   This  behavior  can  be
     changed via the flags argument.
     If  the  urandom  source has been initialized, reads of up to 256 bytes
     will always return as many bytes as requested and will  not  be  inter-
     rupted  by  signals.  No such guarantees apply for larger buffer sizes.
     For example, if the call is interrupted by a  signal  handler,  it  may
     return a partially filled buffer, or fail with the error EINTR.
     If  the  urandom  source has not yet been initialized, then getrandom()
     will block, unless GRND_NONBLOCK is specified in flags.
     The flags argument is a bit mask that can contain zero or more  of  the
     following values ORed together:
     GRND_RANDOM
            If  this bit is set, then random bytes are drawn from the random
            source (i.e., the same source as the /dev/random device) instead
            of  the  urandom  source.  The random source is limited based on
            the entropy that can be obtained from environmental  noise.   If
            the  number of available bytes in the random source is less than
            requested in buflen, the call returns just the available  random
            bytes.   If  no random bytes are available, the behavior depends
            on the presence of GRND_NONBLOCK in the flags argument.
     GRND_NONBLOCK
            By default, when reading from  the  random  source,  getrandom()
            blocks  if  no random bytes are available, and when reading from
            the urandom source, it blocks if the entropy pool  has  not  yet
            been  initialized.   If  the  GRND_NONBLOCK  flag  is  set, then
            getrandom() does not block in these cases, but  instead  immedi-
            ately returns -1 with errno set to EAGAIN.

RETURN VALUE

     On success, getrandom() returns the number of bytes that were copied to
     the buffer buf.  This may be less than the number  of  bytes  requested
     via  buflen  if  either GRND_RANDOM was specified in flags and insuffi-
     cient entropy was present in the random source or the system  call  was
     interrupted by a signal.
     On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

     EAGAIN The  requested  entropy was not available, and getrandom() would
            have blocked if the GRND_NONBLOCK flag was not set.
     EFAULT The address referred to by buf is outside the accessible address
            space.
     EINTR  The  call  was interrupted by a signal handler; see the descrip-
            tion of how interrupted read(2) calls on "slow" devices are han-
            dled  with  and without the SA_RESTART flag in the signal(7) man
            page.
     EINVAL An invalid flag was specified in flags.
     ENOSYS The glibc wrapper function for getrandom() determined  that  the
            underlying kernel does not implement this system call.

VERSIONS

     getrandom()  was  introduced in version 3.17 of the Linux kernel.  Sup-
     port was added to glibc in version 2.25.

CONFORMING TO

     This system call is Linux-specific.

NOTES

     For an overview and comparison of the various interfaces  that  can  be
     used to obtain randomness, see random(7).
     Unlike  /dev/random  and /dev/urandom, getrandom() does not involve the
     use of pathnames or file descriptors.  Thus, getrandom() can be  useful
     in  cases  where chroot(2) makes /dev pathnames invisible, and where an
     application (e.g., a daemon during start-up) closes a  file  descriptor
     for one of these files that was opened by a library.
 Maximum number of bytes returned
     As of Linux 3.19 the following limits apply:
  • When reading from the urandom source, a maximum of 33554431 bytes is

returned by a single call to getrandom() on systems where int has a

        size of 32 bits.
  • When reading from the random source, a maximum of 512 bytes is

returned.

 Interruption by a signal handler
     When reading from the urandom source (GRND_RANDOM is not set),  getran-
     dom()  will  block  until the entropy pool has been initialized (unless
     the GRND_NONBLOCK flag was specified).  If a request is made to read  a
     large  number  of  bytes  (more than 256), getrandom() will block until
     those bytes have been generated and transferred from kernel  memory  to
     buf.  When reading from the random source (GRND_RANDOM is set), getran-
     dom() will block until some random bytes become available  (unless  the
     GRND_NONBLOCK flag was specified).
     The  behavior  when a call to getrandom() that is blocked while reading
     from the urandom source is interrupted by a signal handler  depends  on
     the initialization state of the entropy buffer and on the request size,
     buflen.  If the entropy is not yet initialized,  then  the  call  fails
     with the EINTR error.  If the entropy pool has been initialized and the
     request size is large (buflen > 256), the call either succeeds, return-
     ing  a  partially filled buffer, or fails with the error EINTR.  If the
     entropy pool has  been  initialized  and  the  request  size  is  small
     (buflen <= 256),  then  getrandom() will not fail with EINTR.  Instead,
     it will return all of the bytes that have been requested.
     When reading from the random source, blocking requests of any size  can
     be  interrupted  by  a  signal  handler  (the call fails with the error
     EINTR).
     Using getrandom() to read small buffers (<= 256 bytes) from the urandom
     source is the preferred mode of usage.
     The  special  treatment of small values of buflen was designed for com-
     patibility with OpenBSD's getentropy(3), which is nowadays supported by
     glibc.
     The  user  of getrandom() must always check the return value, to deter-
     mine whether either an error occurred or  fewer  bytes  than  requested
     were  returned.   In  the  case  where GRND_RANDOM is not specified and
     buflen is less than or equal to 256,  a  return  of  fewer  bytes  than
     requested  should  never  happen, but the careful programmer will check
     for this anyway!

BUGS

     As of Linux 3.19, the following bug exists:
  • Depending on CPU load, getrandom() does not react to interrupts

before reading all bytes requested.

SEE ALSO

     getentropy(3), random(4), urandom(4), random(7), signal(7)

COLOPHON

     This  page  is  part of release 4.16 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
     description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
     latest     version     of     this    page,    can    be    found    at
     https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux 2017-09-15 GETRANDOM(2)

/data/webs/external/dokuwiki/data/pages/man/getrandom.txt · Last modified: 2019/05/17 09:47 by 127.0.0.1

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