Random Number Seeds¶

The random number functions in most language libraries are actually pseudo-random number generators. Given the same seed, or starting value, they will reproduce the same sequence of numbers. If a relatively unique sequence is required on multiple nodes, the seeds should be generated from a source of high entropy random bits. On Linux systems, this can be accomplished by reading random bits from the system file /dev/random.

C/C++¶

The read can readily be done with fread() in C/C++ by treating /dev/random as a stream.

int main ( void )
{
  #include <stdio.h>
  double x;
  int i[2];
  FILE *fp;
  fp = fopen("/dev/random","r");
  fread ( &x, 1, 8, fp );
  fread ( i, 1, 8, fp );
  fclose ( fp );
  printf ( "%i %i %g\n", i[0], i[1], x );
  return 0;
}

Fortran¶

In Fortran, the size of the variable determines how many bits will be read. The /dev/random file must be treated as a binary, direct access file, with a record length corresponding to the byte size of the variable being read into.

program main
real*8 x
integer*4 i(2)
open ( unit=1, file='/dev/random', action='read',
       form='unformatted', access='direct', recl=8, status='old' )
read ( 1, rec=1 ) x
read ( 1, rec=1 ) i
close ( 1 )
print *, i, x
stop
end