On _some_ systems one decent source of randomness, albeit at a low bit rate, is lm_sensors. The machines I am referring to alternate randomly between two different fan speed values or have varying low bits in their temperature readings (at a constant workload, including idle).
If it is ok to go outside the node for this information, then rather than mess about with transmission time delays the simplest thing would be to run a pseudo random number generator on one node and have the other nodes retrieve blocks of numbers from it. If the server hands out the generator output sequentially they will all receive different blocks, and these can be stuffed into the ioctl to keep /dev/urandom happy. Probably less work to keep the cluster behind a firewall and dispense with applications (or application modes) that need /dev/urandom. Regards, David Mathog mat...@caltech.edu Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
