How to use --gen-random ?

[Werner Koch]

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 10:41:42 -0400, Jason Mantor said:

> Ok, I've googled this without success.  The man page mentions the count,
> but it doesn't explain what the quality level 0|1|2 argument that precedes
> it actually means.  I've played with this a bit using all three and It's
> emitting random bytes for me, but I'm wonder what value I should be using
> ?

Level 0 should not be considered cryptographic strong random.

Level 1 is cryptographic strong random and used by GnuPG for session
keys and padding.

Level 2 is stronger by requiring that the internal pool has been
updated with more entropy; it is used for creating keys.

Hth,

  Werner

-- 
Werner Koch                                      <wk at gnupg.org>
The GnuPG Experts                                http://g10code.com
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 http://fsfeurope.org