Re: The fortune(6) / random problem (again)

Alexander Leidinger wrote:
Hi,

this was discussed a while ago (and I don't remember the ...
status-quo), but with a recent current I see non-random output of
fortune when using non standard files:

I do something vaguely similar to what you're doing, which is to point
fortune at a directory of symlinks to various fortune files (see man page
for why that works). My -current is as of 6/19 and I'm not seeing this
behavior, FYI. (I'd actually be sort of interested to see if you get the
same results using this method as you do specifying files on the command line.)

FWIW, I did see problems back when this last came up, but for an entirely
different reason. It turns out that there were stale fortune files in
/usr/share/games/fortune that were causing problems. Depending on your
upgrading habits, you might try something like:

find /usr/share/games/fortune/ -type f ! -newer /usr/src/README

and see if anything interesting turns up. Not sure about your other
directories though.

Finally, the obvious thing to check would be that your /dev/random device is
being properly seeded. Check 'sysctl kern.random.sys.harvest' and make sure
at least one of those is set to 1. You can also run:

rndc-confgen -b512 -c ./rndc-key -a -r/dev/random

multiple times to see if you've got a good supply of random bits. You should
be able to run that command at least 10 times without it blocking. If you
can't, you've got /dev/random issues.

hth,

Doug

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