IdP 3 strange startup delay

[Youssef GHORBAL]

> On 31 Mar 2016, at 15:53, Cantor, Scott <cantor.2 at osu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> 	I’m facing a strange stratup delay on an IdP 3.2.1 runnning on a
>> CentOS 7 (OpenJDK 8) inside a jetty-9.3.8.v20160314.
> 
> Do you get the same results with Oracle Java?
> 
> If the file isn't huge, then there's not much that could cause that. A large file can take a long time, though I think we made some adjustments to trim it back.

I’ve found out what’s happening. It’s related to the fact that java 8 switched to a blocking Random Number Generator.
The issue was initially reported here :

http://shibboleth.1660669.n2.nabble.com/idp-jks-not-created-td7613402.html

It happens that a VM (at least mine) does not have much of entropy sources (no mouse pointer, no disk activity etc) so when entropy is needed and not available, Java process is in blocking mode.

Two workarounds :
- switch back to the non blocking RNG in the JVM (as explained in the thread)
- ensure that the entropy is always available. I’m using haveged for this purpose.

As soon as haveged run, the problem disappeard (by the way, I reproduced the issue with OpenJDK and Oracle Java)

Maybe, it’s worth a note on the install page ? (regarding Java 8 pitfalls)

Thank you for your help !

Youssef