[systemd-devel] Why we need to read/save random seed?

[Lennart Poettering]

On Wed, 17.06.15 17:38, Reindl Harald (h.reindl at thelounge.net) wrote:

> * the purpose of systemd-random-seed.service is to seed
>   /dev/random realy at boot so that other services like
>   sshd, vpn, webservers have a random source
> 
> * seed /dev/random *followed* by suck it out again like
>   has the same result as "systemctl mask systemd-random-seed.service"
>   because if there is enough entrophy it would not be needed and if
>   not after suck it out again it's gone

There are ways to read randomness from the pool without decreasing the
entropy estimates. And that kind of reading is good enough for that
purpose.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat