SSHM-bM-^@M-^PRANDM-bM-^@M-^PHELPER(8)        BSD System ManagerM-bM-^@M-^Ys Manual       SSHM-bM-^@M-^PRANDM-bM-^@M-^PHELPER(8)

^[[1mNAME^[[0m
     ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phelper ^[[22mM-bMM-^R Random number gatherer for OpenSSH

^[[1mSYNOPSIS^[[0m
     ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phlper ^[[22m[^[[1mM-bMM-^RvxXh^[[22m] [^[[1mM-bMM-^Rb ^[[4m^[[22mbytes^[[24m]

^[[1mDESCRIPTION^[[0m
     ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phelper ^[[22mis a small helper program used by ssh(1), sshM-bM-^@M-^Padd(1),
     sshM-bM-^@M-^Pagent(1), sshM-bM-^@M-^Pkeygen(1), sshM-bM-^@M-^Pkeyscan(1) and sshd(8) to gather random
     numbers of cryptographic quality if the openssl(4) library has not been
     configured to provide them itself.

     Normally ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phelper ^[[22mwill generate a strong random seed and provide
     it to the calling program via standard output. If standard output is a
     tty, ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phelper ^[[22mwill instead print the seed in hexidecimal format
     unless told otherwise.

     ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phelper ^[[22mwill by default gather random numbers from the system
     commands listed in ^[[4m/etc/ssh/ssh_prng_cmds^[[24m.  The output of each of the
     commands listed will be hashed and used to generate a random seed for the
     calling program.  ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phelper ^[[22mwill also store seed files in
     ^[[4m~/.ssh/prng_seed^[[24m between executions.

     Alternately, ^[[1msshM-bM-^@M-^PrandM-bM-^@M-^Phelper ^[[22mmay be configured at build time to collect
     random numbers from a EGD/PRNGd server via a unix domain or localhost tcp
     socket.

     This program is not intended to be run by the endM-bM-^@M-^Puser, so the few comM-bM-^@M-^P
     mandline options are for debugging purposes only.

     ^[[1mM-bMM-^Rb ^[[4m^[[22mbytes^[[0m
             Specify the number of random bytes to include in the output.

     ^[[1mM-bMM-^Rx      ^[[22mOutput a hexidecimal instead of a binary seed.

     ^[[1mM-bMM-^RX      ^[[22mForce output of a binary seed, even if standard output is a tty

     ^[[1mM-bMM-^Rv      ^[[22mTurn on debugging message. Multiple ^[[1mM-bMM-^Rv ^[[22moptions will increase the
             debugging level.  ^[[1mM-bMM-^Rh ^[[22mDisplay a summary of options.

^[[1mAUTHORS^[[0m
     Damien Miller <djm@mindrot.org>

^[[1mSEE ALSO^[[0m
     ssh(1), sshM-bM-^@M-^Padd(1), sshM-bM-^@M-^Pkeygen(1), sshd(8)

BSD                             April 14, 2002                             BSD