Re: [bitfolk] Dear Entropy service users, what software uses /dev/random?

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Andy Smith <andy(a)bitfolk.com> wrote: I happened to need to test this today. It seems to open both /dev/urandom and /dev/random, but block on /dev/random $ strace -e file,select gpg --gen-key ... We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, use the disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number generator a better chance to gain enough entropy. open("/home/graham/.gnupg/random_seed", O_RDONLY) = 4 open("/dev/urandom", O_RDONLY) = 4 select(5, [4], NULL, NULL, {3, 0}) = 1 (in [4], left {2, 999994}) open("/dev/random", O_RDONLY) = 5 select(6, [5], NULL, NULL, {3, 0}) = 1 (in [5], left {2, 999995}) select(6, [5], NULL, NULL, {3, 0}) = 0 (Timeout) This isn't something I need to run on bitfolk. However, if anyone does know how to persuade gpg to use /dev/urandom and/or whether it's safe to do so in a docker container shortly after startup, I'd be curious to hear the answer. solution would be for gpg to use getrandom(2) for this.