blog/archive/2017/03/03.rss

   1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
   2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/'>
   3         <channel>
   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from March 2017</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from March 2017</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator&#39;s Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Fri, 3 Mar 2017 14:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
  15 Bokmål edition of &lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/&quot;&gt;The Debian
  16 Administrator&#39;s Handbook&lt;/a&gt;.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
  17 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
  18 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
  19 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
  20 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
  21 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
  22 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.&lt;/p&gt;
  23
  24 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf&quot;&gt;A
  25
  26 fresh PDF edition&lt;/a&gt; in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
  27 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
  28 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
  29 &lt;a href=&quot;https://hosted.weblate.org/translate/debian-handbook/&quot;&gt;visit
  30 Weblate and correct the error&lt;/a&gt;.  The
  31 &lt;a href=&quot;http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html&quot;&gt;state
  32 of the translation including figures&lt;/a&gt; is a useful source for those
  33 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.&lt;/p&gt;
  34 </description>
  35         </item>
  36
  37         <item>
  38                 <title>Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</title>
  39                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html</link>
  40                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html</guid>
  41                 <pubDate>Wed, 1 Mar 2017 20:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
  42                 <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
  43 &lt;a href=&quot;http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/&quot;&gt;the ChaosKey&lt;/a&gt;, a small
  44 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
  45 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
  46 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
  47 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
  48 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
  49 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
  50 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
  51 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
  52 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:&lt;/p&gt;
  53
  54 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
  55 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
  56   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
  57   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
  58      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
  59      sleep 1; \
  60   done
  61 300
  62 0+1 oppføringer inn
  63 0+1 oppføringer ut
  64 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
  65 4
  66 8
  67 12
  68 17
  69 21
  70 %
  71 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
  72
  73 &lt;p&gt;The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
  74 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
  75 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
  76 the ChaosKey inserted:&lt;/p&gt;
  77
  78 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
  79 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
  80   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
  81   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
  82      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
  83      sleep 1; \
  84   done
  85 1079
  86 0+1 oppføringer inn
  87 0+1 oppføringer ut
  88 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
  89 433
  90 1028
  91 1031
  92 1035
  93 1038
  94 %
  95 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
  96
  97 &lt;p&gt;Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
  98 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)&lt;/p&gt;
  99
 100 &lt;p&gt;Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
 101 find &lt;a href=&quot;https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/&quot;&gt;the talk
 102 recording illuminating&lt;/a&gt;.  It explains exactly what the source of
 103 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
 104 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
 105 post.&lt;/p&gt;
 106 </description>
 107         </item>
 108
 109         </channel>
 110 </rss>