LIFE_CYCLE-RAND(7SSL)

🎀 NAME 🎀

life_cycle-rand — the RAND algorithm life-cycle, bestie. It lives in the OpenSSL manual (7SSL), and it's basically the glow-up timeline of every random number generator. ✨

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so listen. Every random number generator — yes, the RANDs — goes through a whole little journey in its life. It's giving character arc. Here are the stages, and you WILL know them:

• start — this is the RAND before it's been allocated. Literally just vibes. It's the starting state for every single life-cycle transition, no exceptions.
• newed — the RAND has been allocated now 💅 but it still can't generate any output. It's dressed but not ready, yk?
• instantiated — now it's set up AND capable of generating output. Main character energy. This is the state where it's actually doing the job.
• uninstantiated — it's been shutdown and it is no longer capable of generating output. RIP to the output, respectfully.
• freed — this is where it ends up when the RAND is freed. It's the terminal state for ALL life-cycle transitions. The final boss, the end credits, periodt.

🌀 State Transition Diagram 🌀

The usual life-cycle of a RAND looks like this, no cap:

                               +-------------------------+
                               |          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 bit defines every legal state transition. It's the canonical list, so like… this is THE source of truth. Don't argue with the table. 🙈

 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

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👑 NOTES 👑

At some point the EVP layer will begin enforcing the transitions described herein. So like, lowkey keep that in mind — future you will thank present you for not doing nonsense transitions. 🫶

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• provider-rand(7)
• EVP_RAND(3)

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💜 HISTORY 💜

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

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🌸 COPYRIGHT 🌸

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>.

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okay that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this was OpenSSL, version 4.0.3, dated 2026-09-29, and yes i did read the entire thing for you. slay. 🎀✨🔥