diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'misc-utils/mcookie.1')
| -rw-r--r-- | misc-utils/mcookie.1 | 36 |
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/misc-utils/mcookie.1 b/misc-utils/mcookie.1 index 395082548..6d3a11c30 100644 --- a/misc-utils/mcookie.1 +++ b/misc-utils/mcookie.1 @@ -1,10 +1,10 @@ .\" mcookie.1 -- .\" Public Domain 1995 Rickard E. Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu) -.TH MCOOKIE 1 "12 Feb 1995" "" "Linux Programmer's Manual" +.TH MCOOKIE 1 "25 September 1995" "" "Linux Programmer's Manual" .SH NAME mcookie \- generate magic cookies for xauth .SH SYNOPSIS -.B mcookie +.BI "mcookie [\-v] [\-f " filename " ]" .SH DESCRIPTION .B mcookie generates a 128-bit random hexadecimal number for use with the X authority @@ -12,6 +12,36 @@ system. Typical usage: .RS xauth add :0 . `mcookie` .RE +.PP +The "random" number generated is actually the output of the MD5 message +digest fed with various piece of random information: the current time, the +process id, the parent process id, the contents of an input file (if +.B \-f +is specified), and several bytes of information from the first of the +following devices which is present: +.IR /dev/urandom ", " /dev/random ", " /dev/audio . +Other files in +.I /proc +may be used as a last resort. +.SH BUGS +The entropy in the generated 128-bit is probably quite small (and, +therefore, vulnerable to attack) unless a non-pseudorandom number generator +is used (e.g., +.I /dev/random +under Linux). +.PP +It is assumed that none of the devices opened will block. +.SH FILES +.I /dev/random +.br +.I /dev/urandom +.br +.I /dev/audio +.br +.I /proc/stat +.br +.I /proc/loadavg .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR X (1), -.BR xauth (1) +.BR xauth (1), +.BR md5sum (1) |