cat_and_dev_random_in_perl

cat_dev_random.pl

# object to make equivalent
#  cat /dev/random

#!/bin/perl
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
#just an interface for dev/random ..urandom?
use Crypt::Random qw( makerandom_octet); 
#entropy
use Net::Ping;




##OO function b/c lib example from perl.org/Net/Ping
## cycles through ips, trims off last digit in duration of ping
## sums up ^^ returns value
sub entropy
{
    my $p = Net::Ping->new('icmp');
    my @friendly_hosts = ('8.8.8.8', '8.8.4.4');
    my $calc_num=0;
    foreach my  $host (@friendly_hosts)
    {
    	my ($failure, $duration, $dest_ip) = $p->ping($host);
   	#print " ".$failure." ".$duration." ".$dest_ip." ";
        ## converstion of type is important - ~ might not work right otherwise
	my $duration_string = sprintf("%10.20s", $duration);
        my @duration_array = split //, $duration_string;
        $calc_num = $calc_num + pop(@duration_array)   
    }
    return $calc_num;
}


sub cat
{
  #print $_[0];
  #use dumper to avoid breaking terminal/multiplexer
  print Dumper($_[0]);
}

sub dev_random
{
   my $rand_block = makerandom_octet ( Length => $_[0] );
   return $rand_block;
}

# like a command line
sub main
{
    my $final_block;
    for (my $i=entropy(); $i <= 50; $i++) 
    {
      $final_block = $final_block . dev_random( entropy() )
    }

    cat( $final_block );
}

#
# block size
#
my $control_int = entropy();

main( $control_int );

Final thoughts; this could have been done with bash and existing /bin/ utilities easier... entropy is not done properly... using ping time for random ints is risky as cache at different levels could result in a constant trip time etc etc.

Explanation of code; /dev/random is called via a perl interface, each call returns a different size block, the concatenation of the of those blocks results in the final dump