Re: [PATCH] using arc4random for strong randomness matters.

Hi,

Please don't top-quote on postgres mailing lists.

On 2017-11-22 16:16:35 +0000, David CARLIER wrote:
> > David CARLIER <devnexen(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > > I m not against as such that depends of the implementation but I ve seen
> > in
> > > quick glance it s RC4 ?
> >
> > More generally, why should we bother with an additional implementation?
> > Is this better than /dev/urandom, and if so why?

> Basically the call never fails, always generating high quality random data
> (especially the implementations based on Chacha* family, RC4 has
> predictability issues), there is no need of a file descriptor.

I don't really see much benefit in those properties for postgres
specifically. Not needing an fd is nice for cases where you're not
guaranteed to have access to a filesystem, but postgres isn't going to
work in those cases anyway.

Greetings,

Andres Freund