On Sat, Oct 02, 2010 at 02:38:36PM -0400, Ted Unangst wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Oct 2010, Jason McIntyre wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Oct 02, 2010 at 12:00:30PM -0400, Ted Unangst wrote:
> > > Is this the best way to deprecate support for the srandom and urandom 
> > > devices?  The devices themselves are going to stick around for a while, 
> > > but we only need to tell people about one, right?
> > > 
> > 
> > if you are going to leave the MLINKS for srandom and urandom, i think
> > you should not kill the stuff, and instead say that they are the same as
> > whatever you've changed it to.
> > 
> > otherwise kill the MLINKS.
> 
> Fair enough, how about this?
> 

if those devices are still going to be there, i would say just leave the
man page entirely except for tweaking the descriptions of u/srandom to
say "the same as X".

your HISTORY note might still be appropriate though.
jmc


> Index: random.4
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /home/tedu/cvs/src/share/man/man4/random.4,v
> retrieving revision 1.22
> diff -u -r1.22 random.4
> --- random.4  10 Oct 2008 20:13:29 -0000      1.22
> +++ random.4  2 Oct 2010 18:36:40 -0000
> @@ -28,8 +28,6 @@
>  .Os
>  .Sh NAME
>  .Nm random ,
> -.Nm srandom ,
> -.Nm urandom ,
>  .Nm arandom
>  .Nd random data source devices
>  .Sh SYNOPSIS
> @@ -43,22 +41,10 @@
>  Entropy data is collected from system activity (like disk and
>  network device interrupts and such), and then run through various
>  hash or message digest functions to generate the output.
> -.Bl -hang -width /dev/srandomX
> +.Bl -hang -width /dev/arandomX
>  .It Pa /dev/random
>  This device is reserved for future support of hardware
>  random generators.
> -.It Pa /dev/srandom
> -Strong random data.
> -This device returns reliable random data.
> -If sufficient entropy is not currently available (i.e., the entropy
> -pool quality starts to run low), the driver pauses while more of
> -such data is collected.
> -The entropy pool data is converted into output data using MD5.
> -.It Pa /dev/urandom
> -Same as above, but does not guarantee the data to be strong.
> -The entropy pool data is converted into output data using MD5.
> -When the entropy pool quality runs low, the driver will continue
> -to output data.
>  .It Pa /dev/arandom
>  As required, entropy pool data re-seeds an ARC4 generator,
>  which then generates high-quality pseudo-random output data.
> @@ -69,10 +55,8 @@
>  providing a second level of ARC4 hashed data.
>  .El
>  .Sh FILES
> -.Bl -tag -width /dev/srandom -compact
> +.Bl -tag -width /dev/arandom -compact
>  .It Pa /dev/random
> -.It Pa /dev/srandom
> -.It Pa /dev/urandom
>  .It Pa /dev/arandom
>  .El
>  .Sh SEE ALSO
> @@ -89,6 +73,16 @@
>  .Nm
>  device first appeared in the Linux operating system.
>  This is a cloned interface.
> +.Pp
> +Previous versions of
> +.Ox
> +included the
> +.Nm srandom
> +and
> +.Nm urandom
> +devices.
> +These interfaces have been deprecated and replaced with
> +.Nm arandom .
>  .Pp
>  ARC4 routines added by David Mazieres.
>  .Sh BUGS

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