[Cryptography] Improving Random Seeds in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Cloud Instances

[Rob Seward]

There's a new feature in Ubuntu that enables PRNG seeding from an entropy
server for new cloud instances:
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2014/02/random-seeds-in-ubuntu-1404-lts-cloud.html


Q: And what is Ubuntu's solution?
> *A: Meet pollinate.*
>
>    - pollinate is a new security feature, that seeds the PRNG.
>
>
>    - Introduced in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS cloud images
>
>
>    - Upstart job
>
>
>    - It automatically seeds the Linux PRNG as early as possible, and
>    before SSH keys are generated
>
>
>    - It's GPLv3 free software
>
>
>    - Simple shell script wrapper around curl <http://manpg.es/curl>
>
>
>    - Fetches random seeds
>
>
>    - From 1 or more entropy servers in a pool
>
>
>    - Writes them into /dev/urandom
>
>
>    - https://launchpad.net/pollinate
>
>
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