My hypothetical is "Ensure good random bits (on Python 3.5.2 and Linux), and block rather than allow bad bits."

I'm not quite sure I understand all of your question, Donald.  On Python 3.4—and by BDFL declaration on 3.5.2—os.urandom() *will not* block, although it might on 3.5.1.

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 11:33 AM, Donald Stufft <donald@stufft.io> wrote:

On Jun 10, 2016, at 2:29 PM, David Mertz <mertz@gnosis.cx> wrote:

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.

Do you mean if os.urandom blocked and you wanted to call os.urandom from your boot script? Or if os.urandom doesn’t block and you wanted to ensure you got good random numbers on boot?


Donald Stufft






--
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.