I'd like to automate generating at least two GPG keys for testing and demonstration purposes in a virtual machine. Because of this context I want to make sure the key generation is fast, ideally not using or modifying /dev/*random
at all. For example, using the system clock as the only random source would be fine:
$ gpg --quick-gen-key 'alice' [options] --random-data $(date +%s)
$ sleep 2
$ gpg --quick-gen-key 'bob' [options] --random-data $(date +%s)
I haven't been able to find any options like this. There's -quick-random
and --debug-quick-random
which are not in the man
page, seem to be supported by gpg
, and just don't work. These commands, for example, ran for several minutes before I killed them:
$ gpg --batch --debug-quick-random --passphrase 'alice' --quick-gen-key 'alice@example.org'
$ gpg --batch -quick-random --passphrase 'alice' --quick-gen-key 'alice@example.org'
Using gpg
(GnuPG) 2.1.2.
Best Answer
You can temporarily have
/dev/random
pull from/dev/urandom
usingrng-tools
:More information here: https://madebits.github.io/#blog/2014/2014-05-30-Making-dev-random-Temporary-Faster.md