Home Original page

[Python-Dev] BDFL ruling request: should we block forever waiting for high-quality random bits?

Nikolaus Rath Nikolaus at rath.org
Thu Jun 9 23:50:45 EDT 2016 
On Jun 09 2016, Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org> wrote:
> On 06/09/2016 07:38 PM, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
>> On Jun 09 2016, Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org> wrote:
>>> Nope, I want the old behavior back.  os.urandom() should read
>>> /dev/random if getrandom() would block.  As the British say, "it
>>> should do what it says on the tin".
>> Aeh, what the tin says is "return random bytes".
>
> What the tin says is "urandom", which has local man pages that dictate
> exactly how it behaves. 
[...]

I disagree. The authoritative source for the behavior of the Python
'urandom' function is the Python documentation, not the Linux manpage
for the "urandom" device.

And https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/os.html says first and foremost:

 os.urandom(n)¶

    Return a string of n random bytes suitable for cryptographic use.


Best,
-Nikolaus

-- 
GPG encrypted emails preferred. Key id: 0xD113FCAC3C4E599F
Fingerprint: ED31 791B 2C5C 1613 AF38 8B8A D113 FCAC 3C4E 599F

             »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«
More information about the Python-Dev mailing list