|
From: | Jon Bright |
Subject: | Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: current multiple heads (was Re: write access to my public server) |
Date: | Fri, 30 Apr 2004 18:01:04 +0200 |
User-agent: | Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (Windows/20040207) |
graydon hoare wrote:
Jon Bright wrote:Are these cryptographically random bits? If so, using that many random bits does sound like a bit of a recipe for draining the machine's entropy pool (particularly on unattended remote machines that don't have the advantage of keyboard/mouse input).well, an unattented machine isn't likely to run "monotone bump" or such; it's really only a special case for users to "break cycles" when they would otherwise form. I doubt it will be common.
We have lots of servers at a remote location that we develop on via VPN/SSH. These machines don't have keyboards, mice or monitors but would be liable to see quite a lot of "monotone bump".... they do get some entropy from HDs, network latency and so forth, I imagine, but they're otherwise fairly starved.
Would generating a GUID perhaps be easier? It'd certainly be less entropy-hungry. And there's lots of pre-existing stuff about for dealing with GUIDs...perhaps. I guess I just have more confidence in general improbability than I do in "global uniqueness". but that's all it's serving as, yes.
GUID generation is flexible in this respect - it can be generated with reference to factors such as time, MAC address and so forth, or generated randomly.
-- Jon Bright Silicon Circus Ltd. http://www.siliconcircus.com
[Prev in Thread] | Current Thread | [Next in Thread] |