LIFE_CYCLE-RAND(7ossl)

📦
version 15.1 · 3 versions
, in freebsd 15.1

🎀 NAME 🎀

life_cycle-rand — the whole entire life-cycle of a RAND algorithm, bestie ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so literally every random number generator (that's a RAND, iykyk) goes through a bunch of stages in its life-cycle, and we're gonna walk through all of them together. Grab a snack 🍓

The stages, one by one 💅

  • start — this is the RAND before it's been allocated. It's the starting state for literally any life-cycle transition ever. Baby's first state 🍼
  • newed — this is the RAND after it's been allocated but it's still unable to generate any output. Like, it exists, but it's not giving anything yet 🙈
  • instantiated — this is the RAND when it's all set up and capable of generating output. Main character energy, fr fr 👑
  • uninstantiated — this is the RAND when it's been shutdown and it's no longer capable of generating output. It ate, and now it's resting 😭
  • freed — this one is entered when the RAND is freed. It's the terminal state for all life-cycle transitions. The end, periodt. 💀

State Transition Diagram 🔥

The usual life-cycle of a RAND is illustrated like this, and yes she's iconic:

                               +-------------------------+
                               |          start          |
                               +-------------------------+
                                 |
                                 | EVP_RAND_CTX_new
                                 v
                               +-------------------------+
                               |          newed          |
                               +-------------------------+
                                 |
                                 | EVP_RAND_instantiate
                                 v
           EVP_RAND_generate   +-------------------------+
         +-------------------- |                         |
         |                     |      instantiated       |
         +-------------------> |                         | <+
                               +-------------------------+  '
                                 |                          '
                                 | EVP_RAND_uninstantiate   '
       EVP_RAND_instantiate
                                 v                          '
                               +-------------------------+  '
                               |     uninstantiated      | -+
                               +-------------------------+
                                 |
                                 | EVP_RAND_CTX_free
                                 v
                               +-------------------------+
                               |          freed          |
                               +-------------------------+

Formal State Transitions 📋

This section defines, like, all of the legal state transitions. This is the canonical list — no cap, this is the source of truth 🫶

 Function Call              ------------------ Current State
------------------
                                   start   newed   instantiated  uninstantiated
freed
 EVP_RAND_CTX_new           newed
 EVP_RAND_instantiate            instantiated
 EVP_RAND_generate                          instantiated
 EVP_RAND_uninstantiate                    uninstantiated
 EVP_RAND_CTX_free          freed   freed      freed          freed
 EVP_RAND_CTX_get_params            newed   instantiated  uninstantiated
freed
 EVP_RAND_CTX_set_params            newed   instantiated  uninstantiated
freed
 EVP_RAND_CTX_gettable_params       newed   instantiated  uninstantiated
freed
 EVP_RAND_CTX_settable_params       newed   instantiated  uninstantiated
freed

💜 NOTES 💜

At some point the EVP layer will begin enforcing the transitions described herein. So like… don't get too comfortable, bestie 👀

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

🌈 HISTORY 🌈

The provider RAND interface was introduced in OpenSSL 3.0. Throwback, honestly ⭐

Copyright 2021 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at <https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

That's the whole page, bestie — go forth and transition responsibly 💖 This was LIFE_CYCLE-RAND(7ossl) from OpenSSL, version 3.5.6, dated 2026-04-07. Slay 🎀✨

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