L<foo|foo> is sub-optimal If the xref is the same as the title,
which is what we do, then you only need L<foo>. This fixes all
1457 occurrences in 349 files. Approximately. (And pod used to
need both.)
Reviewed-by: Richard Levitte <levitte@openssl.org>
The justification for RAND_pseudo_bytes is somewhat dubious, and the reality
is that it is frequently being misused. RAND_bytes and RAND_pseudo_bytes in
the default implementation both end up calling ssleay_rand_bytes. Both may
return -1 in an error condition. If there is insufficient entropy then
both will return 0, but RAND_bytes will additionally add an error to the
error queue. They both return 1 on success.
Therefore the fundamental difference between the two is that one will add an
error to the error queue with insufficient entory whilst the other will not.
Frequently there are constructions of this form:
if(RAND_pseudo_bytes(...) <= 1)
goto err;
In the above form insufficient entropy is treated as an error anyway, so
RAND_bytes is probably the better form to use.
This form is also seen:
if(!RAND_pseudo_bytes(...))
goto err;
This is technically not correct at all since a -1 return value is
incorrectly handled - but this form will also treat insufficient entropy as
an error.
Within libssl it is required that you have correctly seeded your entropy
pool and so there seems little benefit in using RAND_pseudo_bytes.
Similarly in libcrypto many operations also require a correctly seeded
entropy pool and so in most interesting cases you would be better off
using RAND_bytes anyway. There is a significant risk of RAND_pseudo_bytes
being incorrectly used in scenarios where security can be compromised by
insufficient entropy.
If you are not using the default implementation, then most engines use the
same function to implement RAND_bytes and RAND_pseudo_bytes in any case.
Given its misuse, limited benefit, and potential to compromise security,
RAND_pseudo_bytes has been deprecated.
Reviewed-by: Richard Levitte <levitte@openssl.org>
manual when the specific function is refered to in the current manual text.
This correction was originally introduced in OpenBSD's tracking of OpenSSL.
