`/dev/urandom` is usually available on Emscripten, except when using
the special `NODERAWFS` filesystem backend, which replaces all normal
filesystem access with direct Node.js operations.
Since this filesystem backend directly access the filesystem on the
OS, it is not recommended to depend on `/dev/urandom`, especially
when trying to run the Wasm binary on OSes that are not Unix-based.
This can be considered a non-functional change, since Emscripten
implements `/dev/urandom` in the same way as `getentropy()` when not
linking with `-sNODERAWFS`.
From reading the source code, it appears like the desired semantic of
std::unix::rand is to always provide some bytes and never block. For
that reason GRND_NONBLOCK is checked before calling getrandom(0), so
that getrandom(0) won't block. If it would block, then the function
falls back to using /dev/urandom, which for the time being doesn't
block. There are some drawbacks to using /dev/urandom, however, and so
getrandom(GRND_INSECURE) was created as a replacement for this exact
circumstance.
getrandom(GRND_INSECURE) is the same as /dev/urandom, except:
- It won't leave a warning in dmesg if used at early boot time, which is
a common occurance (and the reason why I found this issue);
- It won't introduce a tiny delay at early boot on newer kernels when
/dev/urandom tries to opportunistically create jitter entropy;
- It only requires 1 syscall, rather than 3.
Other than that, it returns the same "quality" of randomness as
/dev/urandom, and never blocks.
It's only available on kernels ≥5.6, so we try to use it, cache the
result of that attempt, and fall back to to the previous code if it
didn't work.
This updates the standard library's documentation to use the new syntax. The
documentation is worthwhile to update as it should be more idiomatic
(particularly for features like this, which are nice for users to get acquainted
with). The general codebase is likely more hassle than benefit to update: it'll
hurt git blame, and generally updates can be done by folks updating the code if
(and when) that makes things more readable with the new format.
A few places in the compiler and library code are updated (mostly just due to
already having been done when this commit was first authored).
`weak!` is needed in a test in another module. With macros
1.0, importing `weak!` would require reordering module
declarations in `std/src/lib.rs`, which is a bit too
evil.
We'll try to use a weak `getrandom` symbol first, because that allows
things like `LD_PRELOAD` interposition. For example, perf measurements
might want to disable randomness to get reproducible results. If the
weak symbol is not found, we fall back to a raw `SYS_getrandom` call.
