What exactly IS random.dat?

[Bobrocket]

I have done some trials to see exactly what random.dat is. I'm still not 100% sure what it is, but hopefully this helps some people:

• random.dat stays the same until it is deleted
• It is always length 24 (the client will make an entire new random.dat if it is above length 25)
• In the RS client, it is a RandomAccessFile object
• It is always opened with the read and write permissions

The process when making a new random.dat:

• If there is no random.dat, on client launch it will create one
• At this point, it will contain a single character -  ÿ (hex -> 255/FF)
• When your client logs in, it will increase in size from a single character to 24.
• This file is never altered from then onwards, however there is something weird that I found that does write to the RandomAccessFile handler that holds the random.dat

 

Pseudocode:

random.dat is a "ht"

A ht ->
new ht(file, string, long)

IF (file.length >= long) delete file

b = new RandomAccessFile(file, string)
n = b.read();
if (n != -1 || !string.equals("r")) {
	write n in the first position
}

seek to 0

I believe that what this does is essentially make sure that the file is valid - if "n" was -1, it would mean that the read operation failed.

 

From what I have seen, I believe it might be better if, instead of fully removing random.dat or making a new, empty, read-only one, you should create a read-only random.dat with the hex character FF written inside. This is because it is written like so by the game itself, and therefore is a valid format (or so it thinks), and doesn't look as suspicious (considering it could just very well be a failed write operation after login - there are no stages where random.dat is empty). I will continue my espionage within the OSRS client to see if I can find anything else of interest regarding random.dat.

 

Good luck everyone!