rcrack and multi-core processors

[staulkor]

So I got my web based rainbow crack thing up and running again. I made a long time ago when I was helping out with the rainbow table generation.

I got this new fangled 45nm 2.66ghz xeon quad core and rcrack is only using one core! Since I am not 1337 enough to modify the code, who thinks they can do it? I don't have anything to offer you, but I can gladly give you virtual beer...plus you get awesome brownie points.

[endeavormac]

You don't need to modify the code.

Let's say you have 16 rainbow tables numbered 1 through 16. Put 1 through 4 in a batch file, 5-8 in a batch file, etc, for each core you have on your processor. Now run all the batch files simultaneously, and your kernel will automatically schedule the processes among the different cores.

Remember though that they will all be pulling the rainbow tables off the same disk. If you spend 100 seconds pulling information off the disk and 100 seconds in cryptanalysis, maybe distributing this task across your cores isn't going to be a good idea. If you spend 10 seconds pulling information off the disk and 100 seconds in cryptanalysis (IE make longer chains), then yeah, give it a shot.

Hope this helps answer your question.