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@reedz reedz commented Jan 23, 2026

Fixes #13628.

This PR implements two optimizations:

  • getrandom() syscall (if available) instead of reading from /dev/urandom is ~14% quicker >
  • fetching & caching GUIDs in batches in thread local storage for future use via single getrandom() call as performed in Random.Shared

Benchmark dot net benchmark is showing the following changes:

Runtime Mean Improvement
Linux (before) 614.2 ns baseline
Linux (after) 61.16 ns ~10x faster

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings January 23, 2026 11:52
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Pull request overview

This PR optimizes Guid.NewGuid() on Unix, primarily targeting Linux, by reducing syscall overhead and reusing entropy to significantly improve performance while maintaining cryptographic-strength randomness.

Changes:

  • Teach the native random infrastructure to use getrandom() (when available) instead of /dev/urandom, reducing per-call overhead for cryptographically secure random bytes.
  • Add CMake configuration and header wiring to detect and expose the availability of getrandom.
  • Reimplement Guid.NewGuid() on Unix to use a per-thread cache of GUIDs filled in batches via a single secure-random call, including logic to correctly set RFC 4122 version and variant bits for each cached GUID.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File Description
src/native/minipal/random.c Adds a HAVE_GETRANDOM-guarded implementation of minipal_get_cryptographically_secure_random_bytes using the getrandom() syscall, looping until the requested buffer is fully populated and handling EINTR, to provide a faster secure RNG backend than /dev/urandom.
src/native/minipal/minipalconfig.h.in Introduces the HAVE_GETRANDOM configuration macro so native code can be conditionally compiled against getrandom() support.
src/native/minipal/configure.cmake Extends the CMake configuration to probe for getrandom in sys/random.h, defining HAVE_GETRANDOM when present so the new native path in random.c is enabled on supported Unix platforms.
src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/Guid.Unix.cs Replaces the per-call secure RNG usage with a [ThreadStatic] cache of 64 GUIDs, filled via a single Interop.GetCryptographicallySecureRandomBytes call and post-processed to set version/variant bits, and updates NewGuid() to draw from this cache (with a WASI-specific non-cached fallback).

// The .NET Foundation licenses this file to you under the MIT license.

using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
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System.Runtime.InteropServices does not appear to be used in this file anymore; consider removing this using to avoid an unnecessary import and keep the file consistent with the usual style of only including needed namespaces.

Suggested change
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

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EgorBo commented Jan 23, 2026

Managed side cache of secure RNG doesn't sound secure. If NewGuid becomes a bottleneck there are other strategies to make it fast

public partial struct Guid
{
// Batch size for cached GUID generation. Chosen to balance memory usage vs syscall overhead.
// 64 GUIDs = 1024 bytes, which provides good amortization of the syscall cost while
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1kB per thread cache just for GUIDs feels very expensive.

NTSTATUS status = BCryptGenRandom(NULL, buffer, (ULONG)bufferLength, BCRYPT_USE_SYSTEM_PREFERRED_RNG);
return BCRYPT_SUCCESS(status) ? 0 : -1;
#elif HAVE_GETRANDOM
// Use getrandom() syscall which is faster than reading from /dev/urandom
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This part of the change looks good.

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Would you mind reverting the contentious cache and focus this PR on just using getrandom when it is available?

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Should we fall back to /dev/urandom for some errors? In particular, I was thinking should consider handling ENOSYS and EPERM. Some container environments or seccomp do, or did, not pass through that syscall.

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Sure thing!
I've reverted managed changes, and updated the getrandom branch to fall back to /dev/urandom on ENOSYS and EPERM returns.

@stephentoub
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Related:
#111287
@vcsjones

#if HAVE_GETRANDOM
// Try getrandom() first - it's faster than /dev/urandom as it avoids file descriptor overhead.
// getrandom() was added in Linux 3.17 (2014) and glibc 2.25 (2017).
static volatile bool sGetrandomUnavailable;
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nit: could we use the same terminology as is there below for devurandom, e.g. sMissingGetrandom?

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Guid.NewGuid() is 10x slower on Linux compared to Windows

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