Random Number Generation in openssl

[Ambarish Mitra]

Hi all,

 

I am trying to generate random numbers using openssl. I am not using the ENGINE API, but using only the rand functions.

 

Code snippet:

 

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        RAND_METHOD *rmeth;
        int r;
        unsigned char buf[16];

 

        rmeth = RAND_SSLeay();

 

        if (rmeth == NULL)
                exit(2);

        r = RAND_bytes(buf, strlen(buf));

        printf("random status: %d\n",r);
        printf("random number: [%s]\n",buf);

 

        RAND_cleanup();
        return 0;
}

 

From the documentation of RAND_bytes, I see that it fills up the buf and returns 1 on success. In this code, this returns 1, but still the buffer comes empty.

random status: 1
random number: []

 

Has anyone faced this issue before? Where am I going wrong? Any help appreciated.