On Fri May 05, Ian Wienand wrote: > On Fri, May 05, 2006 at 05:01:11PM +1000, Michael Lake wrote: > > The make install for the compiled subversion I think will go into > > /usr/local/ > > But I need to "remove" the subversion that was put on via apt-get which is > > in /usr/bin/ and /usr/lib etc otherwise there will be clashes and things > > will get confusing. > > /usr/local/bin should be in your path before /usr/bin, so your locally > installed version will be called when you just call 'svn'. I'd just > leave the old package there. > > If you have root, why not symlink /dev/random to /dev/urandom and > avoid the need for entropy. I'm sure the security implications are > minimal.
This is what I have found.... \beginquote The /dev/random device is suitable for use when very high quality randomness is desired (e.g. for key generation), as it will only return a maximum of the number of bits of randomness (as estimated by the random number generator) contained in the entropy pool. The /dev/urandom device does not have this limit, and will return as many bytes as are requested. As more and more random bytes are requested without giving time for the entropy pool to recharge, this will result in lower quality random numbers. For many applications, however, this is acceptable. .. snipped .... Under Linux, where /dev/random blocks, you can wait a long time on an unattended server for a read to return, since the default is to use the keyboard and mouse to stir the entropy pool, and these may not even be present. \endquote and another quote is "The only difference between /dev/urandom and /dev/random is that /dev/random will block if the estimate of the amount of entropy in the pool is insufficient for the amount of random numbers being requested. /dev/urandom will not block. " My machine has this: ~$ ls -l /dev/uran* cr--r--r-- 1 root root 1, 9 Jun 20 2002 /dev/urandom ~$ ls -l /dev/ran* crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 8 Jun 20 2002 /dev/random Why is one writable by all and the other not ? If I do as root 'ln -s /dev/random /dev/urandom' what might it screw up? How can I go back again and create the character device? It would certainly be easier then as the normal subversion package would probably work. Mike -- Mike Lake Caver, Linux enthusiast and interested in anything technical. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
