what is $HOME/.ssh/prng_seed for?

[Hanry Zhou]

and if I remove it, or make change of it, any impact on ssh connections?

thanks,

[Sundar_7]

I think that is the Random number generator used by the SSH for creating asymmetric keys while establishing the session.

Dont remove that file unless you have /dev/random in your system.

RANDOM generator software is available for 11i.

if /dev/random then SSH uses it or else prng_seed is used.

[Hanry Zhou]

I'm asking because after install the newer version of SSH, I found the prng_seed file has been changed, so I'm not sure if there are any impacts on ssh?

[Steven E. Protter]

The file itself will keep coming back every time you do an ssh/scp/sftp connection as that user.

So removing it is not going to help things very much.

SEP

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

This is the seed file created by ssh while generating the random number using the commands in the global ssh_prng_cmds. This file will get updated as and when you use ssh on the box. This is called Pseudo RNG and is done if you don't have a system wide random number generator like KRNG on 11i.

You can delete this file but it will get generated again unless you use KRNG.

-Sri