Hi, This is an RFC, and it obviously needs much more testing beside the "it boots" smoke test I've just did. Interestingly though, on my current system, the triggered WARN() **reliably** makes the system get un-stuck... I know this is a very crude heuristic, but I would personally prefer it to the other proposals that were mentioned in this jumbo thread. If I get an OK from Linus on this, I'll send a polished v5: further real testing, kernel-parameters.txt docs, a new getrandom_wait(7) manpage as referenced in the WARN() message, and extensions to the getrandom(2) manpage for new getrandom2(). The new getrandom2() system call is basically a summary of Linus', Lennart's, and Willy's proposals. Please see the patch #1 commit log, and the "Link:" section inside it, for a rationale. @Lennart, since you obviously represent user-space here, any further notes on the new system call? thanks, Ahmed S. Darwish (1): random: WARN on large getrandom() waits and introduce getrandom2() drivers/char/Kconfig | 60 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-- drivers/char/random.c | 85 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----- include/uapi/linux/random.h | 20 +++++++-- 3 files changed, 148 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-) -- http://darwish.chasingpointers.com