Ruby slow to launch (was L-o-n-g delay for rc.local in systemd on Ubuntu.)

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

On 2017-08-08 14:43, Bill Freeman wrote:
> I don't know, but getrandom() may well be using /dev/urandom (or a
> related facility).  And that, in turn, might be waiting to "collect
> sufficient entropy".  So some network traffic, keystrokes, whatever,
> need to happen between boot time and the first random emission, or
> that first "random" number becomes predictable.  Since random numbers
> are often used cryptographically, predictability is a bad thing.

True, but there's debate about just *how* predictable, etc. Not a 
subject for this particular thread, but I'd be perfectly happy with udev 
almost-as-random.

> As to why ruby is designed to require a random number before being
> asked to do something dependent on such a random number is a question
> for the ruby developers.

Email already sent. :-)

> Re-linking /dev/urandom will probably break lots of things.  Maybe run
> your script in a chroot jail that has a different /dev/urandom could
> work.

Alas, no -- I'm doing various admin chores, and a chroot won't be 
helpful.

> Is your script too complex to rewrite in bash?  Not a general
> solution, but as a workaround it has its appeal.

*sigh* This is probably where I'm gonna wind up (or Perl, or Python).  
Except I've now written a good handful of scripts that people are 
waiting on, and it's gonna cause me physical pain to have to re-do them 
at this point.

C'est la vie.  I guess that's the way the Ruby crumbles...

-Ken