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Is it an internal PRNG? Is it fed from /dev/random or /dev/urandom? How secure is it? If I have a hardware (TRNG) plugged in feeding my /dev/random will this source of entropy get used by bitcoind?
What kind of random numbers source does getnewaddress in Bitcoin Core API (bitcoind) uses?
Answers
3
As others mentioned Bitcoin core uses OpenSSL random sources.
This means that it uses any random source available, like:
- the operation system, i.e. interrupts
- random sources of the CPU or the chip set
- dedicated hardware for entropy generation
So in order to make sure your hardware random generator works with Bitcoin you must make sure it works with OpenSSL.
3
It uses RAND_bytes from OpenSSL. The relevant call is CKey::MakeNewKey.
getnewaddress is in rpcwallet.cpp. It tries to get a key from the pool, and if the pool is empty it allocates a new one which is populated using RAND_bytes.
1Well OpenSSL handles most cryptography things in Bitcoin. – Jori – 2014-04-19T17:06:23.870
2In this particular case, it's the RAND_bytes call from OpenSSL. – Diego Basch – 2014-04-19T21:46:07.207
1@DiegoBasch: May I suggest you upgrade your comment to an answer, ideally with a link to the source? – pyramids – 2014-04-20T19:43:55.503