When QEMU exposes a VirtIO-RNG device to the guest, that device needs a source of entropy, and that source needs to be "non-blocking", like `/dev/urandom`. However, currently QEMU defaults to the problematic `/dev/random`, which is "blocking" (as in, it waits until sufficient entropy is available).
So change the entropy source to the recommended `/dev/urandom`. Related discussion in these[1][2] past threads. [1] https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2018-06/msg08335.html -- "RNG: Any reason QEMU doesn't default to `/dev/urandom`?" [2] https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2018-09/msg02724.html -- "[RFC] Virtio RNG: Consider changing the default entropy source to /dev/urandom" Signed-off-by: Kashyap Chamarthy <kcham...@redhat.com> --- backends/rng-random.c | 2 +- qemu-options.hx | 2 +- 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/backends/rng-random.c b/backends/rng-random.c index e2a49b0571..eff36ef140 100644 --- a/backends/rng-random.c +++ b/backends/rng-random.c @@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ static void rng_random_init(Object *obj) rng_random_set_filename, NULL); - s->filename = g_strdup("/dev/random"); + s->filename = g_strdup("/dev/urandom"); s->fd = -1; } diff --git a/qemu-options.hx b/qemu-options.hx index 51802cbb26..a525609149 100644 --- a/qemu-options.hx +++ b/qemu-options.hx @@ -4276,7 +4276,7 @@ Creates a random number generator backend which obtains entropy from a device on the host. The @option{id} parameter is a unique ID that will be used to reference this entropy backend from the @option{virtio-rng} device. The @option{filename} parameter specifies which file to obtain -entropy from and if omitted defaults to @option{/dev/random}. +entropy from and if omitted defaults to @option{/dev/urandom}. @item -object rng-egd,id=@var{id},chardev=@var{chardevid} -- 2.17.2