Can you please follow the site guidelines when posting here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Have you read systemd's code comments regarding rdrand? It's quite a reasonable explanation

I have just read it. Well I have to say it's quite a reasonable.

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/f90bcf8679e870878829...

"In such an environment using getrandom() synchronously means we'd block the entire system boot-up until the pool is initialized, i.e. very long."

How long is very long? 100ms, or 10s?

Debian buster VM on an old CPU without RDRAND takes about 5 minutes for the kernel crng init to complete and for sshd to start accepting connections. Stracing the sshd process shows that it's indeed blocked on `getrandom()`.

In some ways, it's very much WONTFIX because something like sshd might actually need the entropy. I'm glad that systemd has proper workarounds implemented so that the machine actually boots out of the box, though.

"It is very common that initialization of the random pool takes a longer time (up to many minutes..."

And it's my experience, too. It's one reason to install something like haveged. I had boot delays in the range of minutes, without it.

> So, you are a "security researcher", and you wonder why we bother

Oh, the art of insulting the audience in the first line of a message intended for them. And it ends up being the person you'd expect to write it.

First you call people idiots and then you say it’s reasonable without apology. Classic.

I still believe we shall never relies on rdrand because we cannot trust the hardware RNG implementation. For me, anybody who use rdrand a idiot unless it's a video game. I said "reasonable" for their argument. I do not agree with them.