On Linux and Unix, Java accesses /dev/random, a special file that serves as a random number generator, in order to encrypt passwords.
It allows access to environmental noise collected from device drivers and other sources.
The bits of noise are stored in a pool. When the pool is empty, reads from /dev/random will be blocked until additional environmental noise is gathered.
A counterpart to /dev/random is /dev/urandom, which reuses the internal pool to produce more pseudo-random bits.
This means that the call will not be blocked, but the output may contain less entropy than the corresponding read from /dev/random.
If your thin client needs too much time to connect when the authentication is required, consider using /dev/urandom instead of /dev/random by adding the following option to the Application Server startup command-line:
-Djava.security.egd=file:///dev/urandom
Article ID: 232
Created: June 26, 2014
Last Updated: December 29, 2025
Author: Support KB Author
Online URL: https://support.veryant.com/phpkb/article.php?id=232