OVH Arch Linux VPS image is annoying.
They installed and enabled dhcpcd but also have the systemd-networkd DHCP client enabled too. They race with each other and sometimes end up causing a 2 minute delay at boot.
It also has the obsolete haveged service installed + enabled too.
Conversation
Replying to
Modern Linux kernel has a proper CSPRNG and has dropped all of the cargo cult entropy exhaustion nonsense. /dev/random and getrandom(...) only block until the CSPRNG is initialized in early boot and never again. Rather than blocking indefinitely, the kernel also now fixes it.
If reading from /dev/random or calling getrandom(...) would block due to the CSPRNG not being initialized yet, the kernel starts generating jitter entropy until the CSPRNG is initialized. Using haveged is only adding extra complexity with no real benefits.
2
3
Even before Linux 5.6 addressed the issue of indefinitely blocking waiting for other entropy sources to initialize the CSPRNG, it was only an issue in an environment like a VPS. OVH still has haveged installed because it was a problem before Linux 5.6. It should be removed now.
1