[Python-Dev] BDFL ruling request: should we block forever waiting for high-quality random bits? (original) (raw)

David Mertz mertz at gnosis.cx
Fri Jun 10 14:29:01 EDT 2016

This is fairly academic, since I do not anticipate needing to do this myself, but I have a specific question. I'll assume that Python 3.5.2 will go back to the 2.6-3.4 behavior in which os.urandom() never blocks on Linux. Moreover, I understand that the case where the insecure bits might be returned are limited to Python scripts that run on system initialization on Linux.

If I were someone who needed to write a Linux system initialization script using Python 3.5.2, what would the code look like. I think for this use case, requiring something with a little bit of "code smell" is fine, but I kinda hope it exists at all.

-- Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting advocates of freedom in prisons. Intellectual property is to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20160610/66976c4a/attachment.html>

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list