Hacker News Reader

> Might be different for exotic platforms, I guess.

Short-lived isolated VMs (like might be used for CI) are one place where entropy can be a problem. The relevant definition of “platform” here is less about the CPU architecture and more about the environment.

View on HN

VMs should have VirtIO RNG set up so there is a high quality entropy source at boot time, provided by the host system.

Should, yes. Will, perhaps, but better be aware of the potential problem and check.

Just yesterday I encountered people complaining about a VM not connecting to a cloud service when they neglected to put their DNS server’s address in the config for the DHCP server used by that particular host. And a dysfunctional RNG is much more difficult to detect.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com