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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.bri.connect.com.au!fjholden.OntheNet.com.au!not-for-mail From: Tony Griffiths <tonyg@OntheNet.com.au> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: rand_irqs in sysconfig Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 12:43:39 +1000 Organization: On the Net (ISP on the Gold Coast, Australia) Lines: 39 Message-ID: <333DD35B.7495@OntheNet.com.au> References: <5he3qi$3sr$1@ruby.mint.net> Reply-To: tonyg@OntheNet.com.au NNTP-Posting-Host: swanee.nt.com.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (WinNT; I) To: Darren Henderson <darren@Quint.somtel.com> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:38025 Darren Henderson wrote: > > Meant to ask this a while ago but forgot all about it. In the sysconfig > file for 2.1.5R there is a setting for rand_irqs. Comments say that its > for generating entropy in the kernel. > > Mine is current let to NO. I havent really noticed any performance > problems anywhere. What will setting this to an appropriate value do for > me? For you, probably not much. For the Universe, help increase the entropy forwards zero, at which point "we" have ONE BIG PROBLEM!!! ;-)) Actually, the "we" doesn't include me so I don't really care what you do and don't intend losing any sleep worrying about increasing Universal entropy. On a more serious note... The 'entropy' mentioned is for generating random number sequences (man random and urandom, et al). The TCP protocol layer can use a 32-bit random number as the starting sequence of a TCP link for instance. This reduces the chances of a SYN 'attack' being successful to almost zero. If you don't know about SYN attacks then DON'T WORRY, but set the IRQs anyway which will reduce your worry level even further! > > Thanks. > > ______________________________________________________________________________ > Darren Henderson darren@jasper.somtel.com > dhenderson@bix.com Tony