[Popcon-developers] Bug#854712: popularity-contest.postinst is doing silly things with /dev/urandom

[sacrificial-spam-address at sciencehorizons.net]

>> When this code was written, uuidgen was Essential: yes and so was available
>> on every Debian system, so the second method was never used.

Makes sense, but the fallback code has come to life.

> Which kernel version provides /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid ?

It predates the start of the git era in 2.6.12-rc2, and a quick search
of earlier history shows it was in 2.3.16, and was not in 2.3.15pre3.

http://repo.or.cz/davej-history.git/blob/0d447745e5268dca6201eaa095a28cc79bd28be0:/drivers/char/random.c
http://repo.or.cz/davej-history.git/blob/9ec0c4e2f8eff2496373ebbd1010aa8484b59495:/drivers/char/random.c

The 2.3.16 file is dated 30 August 1999.

> What about kfreebsd ?

FreeBSD appears to use a uuidgen(2) system call rather than a /proc
file:
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=uuidgen&sektion=2

... however, that uses the clock+MAC form

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/blob/386ddae58459341ec567604707805814a2128a57/sys/kern/kern_uuid.c