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+SSH-RAND-HELPER(8) OpenBSD System Manager's Manual SSH-RAND-HELPER(8)
+
+NAME
+ ssh-rand-helper - random number gatherer for OpenSSH
+
+SYNOPSIS
+ ssh-rand-hlper [-vxXh] [-b bytes]
+
+DESCRIPTION
+ ssh-rand-helper is a small helper program used by ssh(1), ssh-add(1),
+ ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh-keyscan(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 ssh-rand-helper will generate a strong random seed and provide
+ it to the calling program via standard output. If standard output is a
+ tty, ssh-rand-helper will instead print the seed in hexidecimal format
+ unless told otherwise.
+
+ ssh-rand-helper will by default gather random numbers from the system
+ commands listed in /etc/ssh/ssh_prng_cmds. The output of each of the
+ commands listed will be hashed and used to generate a random seed for the
+ calling program. ssh-rand-helper will also store seed files in
+ ~/.ssh/prng_seed between executions.
+
+ Alternately, ssh-rand-helper may 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 end-user, so the few com-
+ mandline options are for debugging purposes only.
+
+ -b bytes
+ Specify the number of random bytes to include in the output.
+
+ -x Output a hexidecimal instead of a binary seed.
+
+ -X Force output of a binary seed, even if standard output is a tty
+
+ -v Turn on debugging message. Multiple -v options will increase the
+ debugging level.
+
+ -h Display a summary of options.
+
+AUTHORS
+ Damien Miller <djm@mindrot.org>
+
+SEE ALSO
+ ssh(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-keygen(1), sshd(8)
+
+OpenBSD 4.1 April 14, 2002 1