Before this patch there was a chance for thread that called rand(3)
slightly later to see rand3_state already allocated, but not yet
initialized. While this API is not expected to be thread-safe, it
is not expected to crash. ztest on 64-thread system reproduced it
reliably for me.
Submitted by: avg@
MFC after: 1 month
Before this patch there was a chance for thread that called rand(3)
slightly later to see rand3_state already allocated, but not yet
initialized. While this API is not expected to be thread-safe, it
is not expected to crash. ztest on 64-thread system reproduced it
reliably for me.
MFC after: 1 month
rand(3)'s standard C API is extremely limiting, but we can do better
than the historical 32-bit state Park-Miller LCG we've shipped since
2001: r73156.
The justification provided at the time for not using random(3) was that
rand_r(3) could not be made to use the same algorithm. That is still
true. However, the irrelevance of rand_r(3) is increasingly obvious.
Since that time, POSIX has marked the interface obsolescent. rand_r(3)
never became part of the standard C library. If not for API
compatibility reasons, I would just remove rand_r(3) entirely.
So, I do not believe it is a problem for rand_r(3) and rand(3) to
diverge.
The 12 ABI is maintained with compatibility definitions, but this
revision does subtly change the API of rand(3). The sequences of
pseudorandom numbers produced in programs built against new versions of
libc will differ from programs built against prior versions of libc.
Reviewed by: kevans, markm
MFC after: no
Relnotes: yes
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23290
It serves no useful purpose and wasn't as popular as its equally meritless
cousin, srandomdev(3).
Setting aside the problems with rand(3) in general, the problem with this
interface is that the seed isn't shared with the caller (other than by
attacking the output of the generator, which is trivial, but not a hallmark of
pleasant API design). The (arguable) utility of rand(3) or random(3) is as a
semi-fast simulation generator which produces consistent results from a given
seed. These are mutually at odd. Furthermore, sometimes people got the
mistaken impression that a high quality random seed meant a weak generator like
rand(3) or random(3) could be used for things like cryptographic key
generation. This is absolutely not so.
The API was never part of a standard and was not widely used in tree. Existing
in-tree uses have all been removed.
Possible replacement in out of tree codebases:
char buf[3];
time_t t;
time(t);
strftime(buf, sizeof(buf), "%S", gmtime(&t));
srand(atoi(buf));
Relnotes: yes
Mainly focus on files that use BSD 3-Clause license.
The Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) group provides a specification
to make it easier for automated tools to detect and summarize well known
opensource licenses. We are gradually adopting the specification, noting
that the tags are considered only advisory and do not, in any way,
superceed or replace the license texts.
Special thanks to Wind River for providing access to "The Duke of
Highlander" tool: an older (2014) run over FreeBSD tree was useful as a
starting point.
reading hard.
2) Instead of doing range transformation in each and every function here,
do it single time directly in do_rand(). One "mod" operation overhead is not
a big deal, but the code looks nicer and possible future functions additions
or PRNG change do not miss range transformations neither have unneeded ones.
3) Use POSIX argument types for visible functions (cosmetic).
MFC after: 1 week
According to style(9):
> normally, include <sys/types.h> OR <sys/param.h>, but not both.
(<sys/param.h> already includes <sys/types.h> when LOCORE is not defined).
but ACM formula we use have internal state (and return value) in the
[1, 0x7ffffffe] range, so our RAND_MAX (0x7fffffff) is never reached
because it is off by one, zero is not reached too.
Correct both RAND_MAX and rand(3) return value, shifting last one
to the 0 by 1 subtracted, resulting POSIXed [0, 0x7ffffffd(=new RAND_MAX)]
range.
2) Add a checks for not overflowing on too big seeds. It may happens on
the machines, where sizeof(unsigned int) > 32 bits.
Reviewed by: bde [1]
MFC after: 2 weeks
srandomdev(). This doesn't actually work
with any modern C compiler:
In particular, both clang and modern gcc
verisons silently elide any xor operation
with 'junk'.
Approved by: secteam
MFC after: 3 days
This fixes a race condition where another thread may fork() before CLOEXEC
is set, unintentionally passing the descriptor to the child process.
This commit only adds O_CLOEXEC flags to open() or openat() calls where no
fcntl(fd, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) follows. The separate fcntl() call still
leaves a race window so it should be fixed later.
seed->first value correlation. It breaks rand_r()... Other possible methods
like shuffling inside aray will breaks rand_r() too, because it assumes
only one word state, i.e. nothing extra can be added after seed assignment
in srand().
BTW, for old formulae seed->first value correlation is not so monotonically
increased as with other Linear Congruential Generators of this type only
becase arithmetic overflow happens. But overflow affects distribution
and lower bits very badly, as many articles says, such type of overflow
not improves PRNG.
So, monotonically increased seed->first value correlation problem remains...
to remove part of seed -> 1st value correlation. Correlation still remains
because of algorithm limits. Note that old algorithm have even stronger
correlation, especially in the lower bits area, but not eye-visible, as
current one.
at 0 as designed. Its BSD adaptation tries to fight it by mapping 0 to
2147483647 after calculation, but this method not works since 2147483647
seed returns to 0 again on the next interation. Instead of after calculation
mapping, map 0 to another value _before_ calculation, so it never stucks.
Even better formula from random() could not be intetgrated because rand_r()
supposed to store its state in the single variable (but table needed for
random() algorithm integration).
