Hello Thecross
I have done some prior reading into entropy, however I am not an expert.
From what I understand if the system has low entropy it can slowdown VPN transfer speeds and likely increase certificate creation time.
You noticed it will slow down the boot process, I believe on boot it is SPRNG looking for hardware created entropy to seed the software random number generator (SPRNG), after boot it will mix the system created entropy along with SPRNG entropy to increase the pool size and randomness.
If the CPU has RDRAND IPFire will get entropy from it.
I read AES-NI cpu support will help speed up VPN connections, I’m not sure if it will store it for other entropy uses.
I tend to forget things but a quick search turned up this about
/dev/random vs /dev/urandom
In the past with no RDRAND or EAS-NI cpu support I was able to increase my entropy by installing the Transmission service on IPFire, I shared the debian install DVD’s for both 32 and 64 bit along with the various IPFire installers, I still share them but not for the entropy anymore.
I added the ubuild.it TrueRNG3 USB device to my system for entropy, the waiting for entropy to boot is gone, it just works and flawless so far, it may deserve a mention in the wiki?
I did make a post about it here.
If I missed something or I’m incorrect please feel free to correct me.