CHAOSREAD(1)

📦 version 1.1, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

👑 CHAOSREAD 👑

okay bestie, so this is chaosread, and it lives in the General Commands Manual section of your system. it's a lil command that goes and grabs raw noise, and honestly? iconic behaviour. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

chaosread — read raw noise source from chaoskey 🌈

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

chaosread

that's it. that's the whole vibe. no args needed, she just goes. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so what she actually does is read ADC values from the noise source on the ChaosKey device that's attached to your machine. that's the whole job. pure chaotic goodness, straight off the hardware. 🦋

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -s serial | --serial serial — picks a specific ChaosKey by its serial number instead of just grabbing whichever one shows up first. obsessed with specificity. 💖
  • -l length | --length length — sets how much data to read. you can slap a k, M or G suffix on it. the default is 1k, no cap. ✨
  • -i | --infinite — keeps reading forever (or at least until the process gets killed). main character energy that refuses to exit. 🔥
  • -b | --bytes — reads 16-bits little endian values and writes out one byte per sample, taken from bits 1-8 of the sample. that's zero-based, so shift right by one. 🧚
  • -b | --cooked — reads from the 'cooked' endpoint. that's the source the kernel driver uses, and it holds trimmed and whitened data with 8 bits of entropy per byte. ✨
  • -b | --raw — reads from the raw RNG source endpoint, which is the best one for testing the hardware on the device. this is the default. 👑
  • -b | --firmware — reads from the device firmware. great for verifying that the firmware inside the device has the contents you expect. ⭐
ngl bestie, the page really does write -b for all four of those last ones. i am simply telling you what it says, word for word, no notes. 💀

✨ USAGE ✨

chaosread reads noise data. that's the whole plot. 😭

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Keith Packard 🫶

and that's the tea 🍓 — this was the chaosread(1) page, filed under the General Commands Manual, and the source/version tag at the bottom is just chaosread with the CHAOSREAD(1) manual reference. periodt. 💜

📦 where this page comes from