The bootloader will now load the /boot/random.seed file if it exists, in
which case the kernel will use it as the initial kernel entropy. The kernel
warns if no random seed was loaded, unless the --no-random-seed option was
given. This option is used for live environments that inherently have no
prior secret state. The kernel initializes its entropy pool from the random
seed as of the first things, so randomness is available very early on.

init(8) will emit a fresh /boot/random.seed file on boot to avoid the same
entropy being used twice. init(8) also writes out /boot/random.seed on
system shutdown where the system has the most entropy. init(8) will warn if
writing the file fails, except if /boot is a real-only filesystem, and
keeping such state is impossible. The system administrator is then
responsible for ensuring the bootloader somehow passes a fresh random seed
on the next boot.

/boot/random.seed must be owned by the root user and root gro...