I've looked and found that entropy init occurs on the first successfull
SSL connection.

RAND_screen takes about 60 seconds on a P4 2.4 ghz
RAND_add & RAND_status takes about 30 seconds on the same machine.
Which is a long time to wait on the first SSL connection.

I would like an additional exported function that would allow early
init of the SSL entropy data ( ie before a libcurl handle is opened ).
I'm willing to submit a patch if there is interest.

What are people's opinion of using
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/security/security/cryptgenrandom.asp
on the windows plaform instead of RAND_screen?

openssl docs state that RAND_screen should not be used on a
non-interactive machine such as a windows server.
Received on 2004-06-09