# Hardware Random Number Generator - how to use

## nephros

Hi!

I have a hardware RNG (Random Number Generator) on my mainboard (AMD 768MPX chipset), and enabled support for it in the kernel.

My question is how to put it to use?

How do I tell apps like apache, gpg, ssh, ssl to read from it when generating keys?

thx,

  nephros

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## jrtayloriv

Make sure you have your HW RNG enabled in the kernel

Device Drivers

--->Character Devices

-------><*>Hardware Random Number Generator

-----------><*>Your HW RNG

Now you need to grab the userland tools. To do this, run the following:

```

emerge rng-tools

/etc/init.d/rngd start

rc-update add rngd default

```

Now rngd will automatically pull random numbers from your HW RNG into /dev/random

As far as telling the programs to use it, don't worry about it. They are already set to take the numbers from /dev/random & /dev/urandom when they need them.

((you could also look into audio-entropyd and clrngd))

--jrtayloriv

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## nephros

Thank you very much for your reply.

I had it figured out in the meantime though.

Meantime here meaning 5 years!   :Laughing:   :Laughing:   :Laughing: 

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## jrtayloriv

I figured you probably had gotten it by now, but I figured that it might pop up in a search for someone else and prove useful. Glad you got it worked out though.   :Very Happy: 

--jrtayloriv

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## manyacrulez

 *jrtayloriv wrote:*   

> I figured you probably had gotten it by now, but I figured that it might pop up in a search for someone else and prove useful. Glad you got it worked out though.  
> 
> --jrtayloriv

 

Indeed, I found the answer within 5 minutes, instead of 5 years  :Smile:  Thanks!

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