getentropy - fill a buffer with random bytes
Contents
Description
The getentropy() function writes length bytes of high-quality random data to the buffer starting at the
location pointed to by buffer. The maximum permitted value for the length argument is 256.
A successful call to getentropy() always provides the requested number of bytes of entropy.
Errors
EFAULT Part or all of the buffer specified by buffer and length is not in valid addressable memory.
EIOlength is greater than 256.
EIO An unspecified error occurred while trying to overwrite buffer with random data.
ENOSYS This kernel version does not implement the getrandom(2) system call required to implement this
function.
History
glibc 2.25. OpenBSD.
Library
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
Name
getentropy - fill a buffer with random bytes
Notes
The getentropy() function is implemented using getrandom(2).
Whereas the glibc wrapper makes getrandom(2) a cancelation point, getentropy() is not a cancelation
point.
getentropy() is also declared in <sys/random.h>. (No feature test macro need be defined to obtain the
declaration from that header file.)
A call to getentropy() may block if the system has just booted and the kernel has not yet collected
enough randomness to initialize the entropy pool. In this case, getentropy() will keep blocking even if
a signal is handled, and will return only once the entropy pool has been initialized.
Return Value
On success, this function returns zero. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the
error.
See Also
getrandom(2), urandom(4), random(7) Linux man-pages 6.9.1 2024-05-02 getentropy(3)
Standards
None.
Synopsis
#include<unistd.h>intgetentropy(voidbuffer[.length],size_tlength); Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)): getentropy(): _DEFAULT_SOURCE
