ssh-rand-hlper [-vxXh] [-b bytes]

DESCRIPTION
     ssh-rand-helper is a small helper program  used  by  ssh(1),
ssh-add(1),
     ssh-agent(1),  ssh-keygen(1),  ssh-keyscan(1) and sshd(8) to
gather random
     numbers of cryptographic quality if the  openssl(4)  library
has not been
     configured to provide them itself.

     Normally  ssh-rand-helper will generate a strong random seed
and provide
     it to the calling program via standard output.  If  standard
output is a
     tty, ssh-rand-helper will instead print the seed in hexidec-
imal format
     unless told otherwise.

     ssh-rand-helper will by default gather random  numbers  from
the system
     commands  listed  in  /etc/ssh/ssh_prng_cmds.  The output of
each of the
     commands listed will be hashed and used to generate a random
seed for the
     calling program.  ssh-rand-helper will also store seed files
in
     ~/.ssh/prng_seed between executions.

     Alternately, ssh-rand-helper may be configured at build time
to collect
     random  numbers from a EGD/PRNGd server via a unix domain or
localhost tcp
     socket.

     This program is not intended to be run by the  end-user,  so
the few com-
     mandline options are for debugging purposes only.

     -b bytes
             Specify the number of random bytes to include in the
output.

     -x      Output a hexidecimal instead of a binary seed.

     -X      Force output of a binary seed, even if standard out-
put is a tty

     -v       Turn on debugging message. Multiple -v options will
increase the
             debugging level.  -h Display a summary of options.