Fast random

Table of Contents

• Algorithm
• Install
• As a package
• Entropy Check
• Disclaimer

/dev/urandom is slow

/dev/urandom:

$ time head -c 1G < /dev/urandom > /dev/null

real	1m37.754s
user	0m0.048s
sys	1m37.684s

frandom:

$ time frandom | head -c 1G > /dev/null

real	0m2.704s
user	0m2.192s
sys	0m2.332s

That's 10.3 mb/s to 370 mb/s

1. Generate iv/key with crypto/rand

2. Spam AES-OFB

3. Reseed after a MB has been generated

go get -u github.com/ammario/frandom/cmd/frandom
if [ -z "$GOPATH" ]; then
    sudo cp ~/go/bin/frandom /usr/bin/frandom
else
    sudo cp $GOPATH/bin/frandom /usr/bin/frandom
fi  

Godoc

frandom appears to outperform crypto/rand

Run entropy.sh to test frandom's entropy. (the dieharder tests will take a while to run) See entropy.txt for my test results.

Entropy tests appear ok but I'm not a crypto-man so maybe use this with caution.