[gentoo-user] rng-tools

[gentoo-user] rng-tools

[Michael Mol]

So I've been making extensive use of rngd on one of my Debian servers,
and I wanted to make use of it on a couple of my Gentoo boxes. Only to
find out that two parameters I need, -T and -R, aren't available, even
when I unmask version '3' in portage. Even the manpage contains
'FIXME' where the Debian manpage contains much more information.

The version of the rng-tools Debian package I'm using is
'2-unofficial-mt.14-1~60squeeze1'. Are the -T and -R parameters unique
to Debian, or is the Gentoo package simply out of date?

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] rng-tools

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:48:59 -0500
Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:

> So I've been making extensive use of rngd on one of my Debian servers,
> and I wanted to make use of it on a couple of my Gentoo boxes. Only to
> find out that two parameters I need, -T and -R, aren't available, even
> when I unmask version '3' in portage. Even the manpage contains
> 'FIXME' where the Debian manpage contains much more information.
> 
> The version of the rng-tools Debian package I'm using is
> '2-unofficial-mt.14-1~60squeeze1'. Are the -T and -R parameters unique
> to Debian, or is the Gentoo package simply out of date?
> 

You should download the .deb and see if it contains custom patches
(rather likely actually). If you want those patches applied, stick them
in /etc/portage/patches/ in the proper place.

I can never remember how all that stuff works, I have to Google it each
time :-)   Start here if you haven't heard of user-custom patch
support in portage yet:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-791464.html
http://klaig.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-apply-user-patches-in-portage.html


-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] rng-tools

[Pandu Poluan]

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On Mar 3, 2012 9:05 PM, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:48:59 -0500
> Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > So I've been making extensive use of rngd on one of my Debian servers,
> > and I wanted to make use of it on a couple of my Gentoo boxes. Only to
> > find out that two parameters I need, -T and -R, aren't available, even
> > when I unmask version '3' in portage. Even the manpage contains
> > 'FIXME' where the Debian manpage contains much more information.
> >
> > The version of the rng-tools Debian package I'm using is
> > '2-unofficial-mt.14-1~60squeeze1'. Are the -T and -R parameters unique
> > to Debian, or is the Gentoo package simply out of date?
> >
>
> You should download the .deb and see if it contains custom patches
> (rather likely actually). If you want those patches applied, stick them
> in /etc/portage/patches/ in the proper place.
>
> I can never remember how all that stuff works, I have to Google it each
> time :-)   Start here if you haven't heard of user-custom patch
> support in portage yet:
>
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-791464.html
>
http://klaig.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-apply-user-patches-in-portage.html
>
>

Remember that it depends on whether the ebuild for the package support user
patches or not.

Rgds,

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Re: [gentoo-user] rng-tools

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sat, 3 Mar 2012 22:04:29 +0700
Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:

> On Mar 3, 2012 9:05 PM, "Alan McKinnon" <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:48:59 -0500
> > Michael Mol <mikemol@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > So I've been making extensive use of rngd on one of my Debian
> > > servers, and I wanted to make use of it on a couple of my Gentoo
> > > boxes. Only to find out that two parameters I need, -T and -R,
> > > aren't available, even when I unmask version '3' in portage. Even
> > > the manpage contains 'FIXME' where the Debian manpage contains
> > > much more information.
> > >
> > > The version of the rng-tools Debian package I'm using is
> > > '2-unofficial-mt.14-1~60squeeze1'. Are the -T and -R parameters
> > > unique to Debian, or is the Gentoo package simply out of date?
> > >
> >
> > You should download the .deb and see if it contains custom patches
> > (rather likely actually). If you want those patches applied, stick
> > them in /etc/portage/patches/ in the proper place.
> >
> > I can never remember how all that stuff works, I have to Google it
> > each time :-)   Start here if you haven't heard of user-custom patch
> > support in portage yet:
> >
> > http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-791464.html
> >
> http://klaig.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-apply-user-patches-in-portage.html
> >
> >
> 
> Remember that it depends on whether the ebuild for the package
> support user patches or not.

That's true enough. epatch_user() must be called for it to work.

However, it is defined in base.eclass and part of EAPI-2. How many
ebuilds does that exclude these days?

I did a quick back-of-the-envelope check:

# find /var/portage/ -type f -name "*.ebuild" | wc
  29846   29846 1730549
# grep EAPI=[234] /var/portage/*-*/*/*.ebuild | wc
  11138   11273  719796
# grep EAPI=1 /var/portage/*-*/*/*.ebuild | wc
    336     341   21938
# grep EAPI=0 /var/portage/*-*/*/*.ebuild | wc
      5       5     275

37.3 coverage of >=EAPI-2. Wow. I really thought it would be more.

-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] rng-tools

[Sebastian Pipping]

Hello Michael,


On 03/03/2012 02:48 PM, Michael Mol wrote:
> The version of the rng-tools Debian package I'm using is
> '2-unofficial-mt.14-1~60squeeze1'. Are the -T and -R parameters unique
> to Debian, or is the Gentoo package simply out of date?

Yes, version 2-unofficial-mt.14* is a Debian fork.  Quoting from its
README file:

  rng-tools, unofficial Debian fork
  =================================

  NOTICE:
  This is an unofficial version of rng-tools with a lot of added
  functionality and bugs, for which I assume total blame.  Don't bother
  rng-tools upstream with problems you find in this version of
  rng-tools.

  rng-tools unofficial-mt is a living reminder to myself to not modify
  upstream code without sending the changes upstream at every step.
  Suddenly, you have a mass of changes too big to send upstream, and
  yet you find yourself without the energy to break them into smallish
  patches to submit upstream (i.e. to "unfork").

  [..]

If you would rather use Debian's version in Gentoo, give

  sys-apps/rng-tools-2_p14

a try, which I have just added to overlay betagarden:

  # layman -a betagarden
  # emerge =sys-apps/rng-tools-2_p14

If you would like to see features from Debian's fork in rng-tools 3.x
and beyond, please step up and help rng-tools' upstream integrate
Debian's changes.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-user] rng-tools

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 5:32 AM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Hello Michael,
>
>
> On 03/03/2012 02:48 PM, Michael Mol wrote:
>> The version of the rng-tools Debian package I'm using is
>> '2-unofficial-mt.14-1~60squeeze1'. Are the -T and -R parameters unique
>> to Debian, or is the Gentoo package simply out of date?
>
> Yes, version 2-unofficial-mt.14* is a Debian fork.  Quoting from its
> README file:
>
>  rng-tools, unofficial Debian fork
>  =================================
>
>  NOTICE:
>  This is an unofficial version of rng-tools with a lot of added
>  functionality and bugs, for which I assume total blame.  Don't bother
>  rng-tools upstream with problems you find in this version of
>  rng-tools.
>
>  rng-tools unofficial-mt is a living reminder to myself to not modify
>  upstream code without sending the changes upstream at every step.
>  Suddenly, you have a mass of changes too big to send upstream, and
>  yet you find yourself without the energy to break them into smallish
>  patches to submit upstream (i.e. to "unfork").
>
>  [..]
>
> If you would rather use Debian's version in Gentoo, give
>
>  sys-apps/rng-tools-2_p14
>
> a try, which I have just added to overlay betagarden:
>
>  # layman -a betagarden
>  # emerge =sys-apps/rng-tools-2_p14
>
> If you would like to see features from Debian's fork in rng-tools 3.x
> and beyond, please step up and help rng-tools' upstream integrate
> Debian's changes.

Thanks to all who replied...I haven't pursued rng-tools on gentoo as I
got a TRNG that's plugged into one of my Gentoo systems.

Meanwhile, I've been working on a package called etools, which may be
of interest and use to people who care about their system's entropy.

https://github.com/mikemol/etools

entwatch works and is useful now.

entbuff worked before I started putting stuff in git. When I've got it
working again, and once I've written manpages for it, the etools
package will be ready for a 1.0 release.

entmesh doesn't have a single line of code written yet, but it's going
to be the jewel of the thing, intended to help solve entropy
starvation issues in servers and virtual machines in environments
where a trusted external entropy source might be found.

-- 
:wq