GETRANDOM(2)						     Linux Programmer's Manual						      GETRANDOM(2)

NAME

       getrandom - obtain a series of random bytes

SYNOPSIS

       #include <linux/random.h>

       int getrandom(void *buf, size_t buflen, unsigned int flags);

DESCRIPTION

       The  getrandom() system call fills the buffer pointed to by buf with up to buflen random bytes.	These bytes can be used to seed user-space
       random number generators or for cryptographic purposes.

       getrandom() relies on entropy gathered from device drivers and other sources of environmental noise.  Unnecessarily reading  large  quanti-
       ties  of data will have a negative impact on other users of the /dev/random and /dev/urandom devices.  Therefore, getrandom() should not be
       used for Monte Carlo simulations or other programs/algorithms which are doing probabilistic sampling.

       By default, getrandom() draws entropy from the /dev/urandom pool.  This behavior can be changed via the flags argument.	If the	/dev/uran-
       dom  pool  has been initialized, reads of up to 256 bytes will always return as many bytes as requested and will not be interrupted by sig-
       nals.  No such guarantees apply for larger buffer sizes.  For example, if the call is interrupted by a signal handler, it may return a par-
       tially  filled buffer, or fail with the error EINTR.  If the pool has not yet been initialized, then the call blocks, unless GRND_RANDOM is
       specified in flags.

       The flags argument is a bit mask that can contain zero or more of the following values ORed together:

       GRND_RANDOM
	      If this bit is set, then random bytes are drawn from the /dev/random pool instead of the /dev/urandom pool.  The /dev/random pool is
	      limited based on the entropy that can be obtained from environmental noise.  If the number of available bytes in /dev/random is less
	      than requested in buflen, the call returns just the available random bytes.  If no random bytes are available, the behavior  depends
	      on the presence of GRND_NONBLOCK in the flags argument.

       GRND_NONBLOCK
	      By  default, when reading from /dev/random, getrandom() blocks if no random bytes are available, and when reading from /dev/urandom,
	      it blocks if the entropy pool has not yet been initialized.  If the GRND_NONBLOCK flag is set, then getrandom() does  not  block	in
	      these cases, but instead immediately returns -1 with errno set to EAGAIN.

RETURN VALUE

       On  success,  getrandom()  returns  the	number	of  bytes  that  were copied to the buffer buf.  This may be less than the number of bytes
       requested via buflen if GRND_RANDOM was specified in flags and insufficient entropy was present in the /dev/random pool, or if  the  system
       call was interrupted by a signal.

       On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

       EINVAL An invalid flag was specified in flags.

       EFAULT The address referred to by buf is outside the accessible address space.

       EAGAIN The requested entropy was not available, and getrandom() would have blocked if the GRND_NONBLOCK flag was not set.

       EINTR  The  call  was  interrupted  by a signal handler; see the description of how interrupted read(2) calls on "slow" devices are handled
	      with and without the SA_RESTART flag in the signal(7) man page.

VERSIONS

       getrandom() was introduced in version 3.17 of the Linux kernel.

CONFORMING TO

       This system call is Linux-specific.

NOTES

   Maximum number of bytes returned
       As of Linux 3.19 the following limits apply:

       *  When reading from /dev/urandom, a maximum of 33554431 bytes is returned by a single call to getrandom() on a system where int has a size
	  of 32 bits.

       *  When reading from /dev/random, a maximum of 512 bytes is returned.

   Initialization of the entropy pool
       The kernel collects bits of entropy from environment.  When a sufficient number of random bits has been collected, the /dev/urandom entropy
       pool is considered to be initialized.  This state is normally reached early in the system bootstrap phase.

   Interruption by a signal handler
       When reading from /dev/urandom (GRND_RANDOM is not set), getrandom() will block until the entropy pool has  been  initialized  (unless  the
       GRND_NONBLOCK  flag  was  specified).   If  a request is made to read a large number (more than 256) of bytes, getrandom() will block until
       those bytes have been generated and transferred from kernel memory to buf.  When reading from /dev/random (GRND_RANDOM is set), getrandom()
       will block until some random bytes become available (unless the GRND_NONBLOCK flag was specified).

       The  behavior  when a call to getrandom() that is blocked while reading from /dev/urandom is interrupted by a signal handler depends on the
       initialization state of the entropy buffer and on the request size, buflen.  If the entropy is not yet initialized, then the call will fail
       with  the  EINTR  error.   If the entropy pool has been initialized and the request size is large (buflen > 256), the call either succeeds,
       returning a partially filled buffer, or fails with the error EINTR.  If the entropy pool has been initialized and the request size is small
       (buflen <= 256), then getrandom() will not fail with EINTR.  Instead, it will return all of the bytes that have been requested.

       When reading from /dev/random, blocking requests of any size can be interrupted by a signal (the call fails with the error EINTR).

       Calling getrandom() to read /dev/urandom for small values (<= 256) of buflen is the preferred mode of usage.

       The special treatment of small values of buflen was designed for compatibility with OpenBSD's getentropy() system call.

       The  user  of  getrandom()  must always check the return value, to determine whether either an error occurred or fewer bytes than requested
       were returned.  In the case where GRND_RANDOM is not specified and buflen is less than or equal to  256,  a  return  of	fewer  bytes  than
       requested should never happen, but the careful programmer will check for this anyway!

   Choice of random device
       Unless  you are doing long-term key generation (and perhaps not even then), you probably shouldn't be using GRND_RANDOM.  The cryptographic
       algorithms used for /dev/urandom are quite conservative, and so should be sufficient for all purposes.  The disadvantage of GRND_RANDOM	is
       that  it can block.  Furthermore, dealing with the partially fulfilled getrandom() requests that can occur when using GRND_RANDOM increases
       code complexity.

   Emulating OpenBSD's getentropy()
       The getentropy() system call in OpenBSD can be emulated using the following function:

	   int
	   getentropy(void *buf, size_t buflen)
	   {
	       int ret;

	       if (buflen > 256)
		   goto failure;
	       ret = getrandom(buf, buflen, 0);
	       if (ret < 0)
		   return ret;
	       if (ret == buflen)
		   return 0;
	   failure:
	       errno = EIO;
	       return -1;
	   }

BUGS

       As of Linux 3.19, the following bug exists:

       *  Depending on CPU load, getrandom() does not react to interrupts before reading all bytes requested.

SEE ALSO

       random(4), urandom(4), signal(7)

Linux								    2015-01-22							      GETRANDOM(2)