friendlier random number support?

[Jeff Trawick <tr...@attglobal.net>]

goal:

make sure a build of APR will support random number generation, or can
be made to support random number generation by the end user without
rebuilding APR, using the kernel device if supported on the platform
and the egd otherwise

--/--

Are there common pathnames for the unix socket used by egds?  Is it
reasonable to give APR a config option (e.g., --with-egd=auto) which
will cause APR to try the common pathnames at run-time?

Is it reasonable to create a special APR error code for no-egd-found
which would be returned from apr_generate_random_bytes() when we were
configured to use an egd but the connect() failed?  Then the message
for that error code could be something like "an EGD is necessary for
random number generation" instead of "connection refused."

Is it reasonable to have an APR config option to make sure there is
the best possible random number generation?  It would cause us to use
the kernel device if available but fall back to --with-egd=auto
otherwise.

Consider an Apache binbuild...  mod_auth_digest is a reasonable module
to include there, but it requires APR random number support.  APR as
built by the Apache binbuild will only support random numbers if the
kernel device exists.  It would be great for binbuild.sh to be able to
tell APR to figure out the best way to support random numbers by
telling APR to fall back to --with-egd=auto if there is no kernel
device.  With a special APR error code for no-egd-found, the user
would have a much better time figuring out what to do if
mod_auth_digest won't initialize.

(clear as mud?)

-- 
Jeff Trawick | trawick@attglobal.net
Born in Roswell... married an alien...