On systems without /dev/urandom, OpenSSL does not
work unless explicitly seeded. This patch gives
an option to seed it either from EGD, or from the
C rng

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Well, as usual, the attachment did not work.

Available as http://www.lerner.co.il/~moshez/ssl_seed

Also put here for reference purposes:
Index: Modules/socketmodule.c
===================================================================
RCS file:
/cvsroot/python/python/dist/src/Modules/socketmodule.c,v
retrieving revision 1.137
diff -c -r1.137 socketmodule.c
*** Modules/socketmodule.c      2001/02/07 20:41:17    
1.137
--- Modules/socketmodule.c      2001/03/01 10:38:45
***************
*** 176,181 ****
--- 176,182 ----
  #include "openssl/pem.h"
  #include "openssl/ssl.h"
  #include "openssl/err.h"
+ #include "openssl/rand.h"
  #endif /* USE_SSL */

  #if defined(MS_WINDOWS) || defined(__BEOS__)
***************
*** 2473,2478 ****
--- 2474,2503 ----
        if (PyDict_SetItemString(d, "SSLType",
                                 (PyObject *)&SSL_Type) !=
0)
                return;
+       if (RAND_status() == 0) {
+ #ifdef USE_EGD
+               char random_device[MAXPATHLEN+1];
+               if (!RAND_file_name (random_device,
MAXPATHLEN + 1)) {
+                       PyErr_SetObject(SSLErrorObject,
+                              
PyString_FromString("RAND_file_name error"));
+                       return;
+               }
+               if (RAND_egd (random_device) == -1) {
+                       PyErr_SetObject(SSLErrorObject,
+                                   
PyString_FromString("RAND_egd error"));
+                       return;
+               }
+ #else /* USE_EGD not defined */
+               char random_string[32];
+               int i;
+
+               srand(time(NULL));
+               for(i=0; i<sizeof(random_string); i++) {
+                       random_string[i] = rand();
+               }
+               RAND_seed(random_string,
sizeof(random_string));
+ #end+       }
  #endif /* USE_SSL */
        PyDict_SetItemString(d, "error", PySocket_Error);
        PySocketSock_Type.ob_type = &PyType_Type;
if /* USE_EGD */

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Note: the patch survived remarkably well: 
The only broken lines are the one that goes:

(PyObject *)&SSL_Type) !=

And the one that goes:

RAND_seed(random_string,

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New version of the patch: now warning when using the
insecure srand/rand (version at
http://www.lerner.co.il/~moshez/ssl_seed also updated)

Index: Modules/socketmodule.c
===================================================================
RCS file:
/cvsroot/python/python/dist/src/Modules/socketmodule.c,v
retrieving revision 1.137
diff -c -r1.137 socketmodule.c
*** Modules/socketmodule.c      2001/02/07 20:41:17    
1.137
--- Modules/socketmodule.c      2001/03/01 11:37:12
***************
*** 176,181 ****
--- 176,182 ----
  #include "openssl/pem.h"
  #include "openssl/ssl.h"
  #include "openssl/err.h"
+ #include "openssl/rand.h"
  #endif /* USE_SSL */

  #if defined(MS_WINDOWS) || defined(__BEOS__)
***************
*** 2473,2478 ****
--- 2474,2505 ----
        if (PyDict_SetItemString(d, "SSLType",
                                 (PyObject *)&SSL_Type) !=
0)
                return;
+       if (RAND_status() == 0) {
+ #ifdef USE_EGD
+               char random_device[MAXPATHLEN+1];
+               if (!RAND_file_name (random_device,
MAXPATHLEN + 1)) {
+                       PyErr_SetObject(SSLErrorObject,
+                              
PyString_FromString("RAND_file_name error"));
+                       return;
+               }
+               if (RAND_egd (random_device) == -1) {
+                       PyErr_SetObject(SSLErrorObject,
+                                   
PyString_FromString("RAND_egd error"));
+                       return;
+               }
+ #else /* USE_EGD not defined */
+               char random_string[32];
+               int i;
+
+                 PyErr_Warn(PyExc_RuntimeWarning,
+                            "using insecure method to
generate random numbers");
+               srand(time(NULL));
+               for(i=0; i<sizeof(random_string); i++) {
+                       random_string[i] = rand();
+               }
+               RAND_seed(random_string,
sizeof(random_string));
+ #endif /* USE_EGD */
+       }
  #endif /* USE_SSL */
        PyDict_SetItemString(d, "error", PySocket_Error);
        PySocketSock_Type.ob_type = &PyType_Type;

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Looks OK.  Go ahead and check it in.

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Checked in

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Who defines USE_EGD???

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Whoever builds, in Modules/Setup
After many discussions, I have not found any way to
autodetect a running EGD so setup.py can enable it.
I should probably have documented it somewhere....sorry.

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But Modules/Setup is no longer used to build the socket module!  It's now built by setup.py, which ignores 
Modules/Setup AFAICT.

I'm very tempted to undo this patch, as it has too many problems (see the python-dev discussion: it needs 
work for pre-0.9.5 versions of openssl, and on some systems it always issues a warning whenever you 
import the socket module.  That's bad, since few of those imports are intended to use the ssl support.

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Reopened and grabbed.

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This patch was accepted, and then withdrawn because it
caused too many problems on some platforms.  So I'm now
officially rejecting and closing it.