Key generation: is it possible to fail fast?

[Bjarni Runar Einarsson]

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Hello gnupg-devel!

I am pondering the problem of key generation vs. system entropy.
In short, it's a pretty bad user experience if key generation
takes a very long time (potentially forever). This sort of thing
happens especially in virtual machine environments.

If the system doesn't have enough entropy, and generates entropy
too slowly to create a key within a "reasonable time frame",
would it be possible to detect that and fail early? Is it
possible to estimate how long key generation will take?

Of course, anything that can be done to speed up key generation
would be ideal, but I do understand that the GnuPG project would
very much like to avoid generating weak keys.

Thanks,
 - Bjarni

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