crypto.randomBytes()

crypto.randomBytes(size[, callback])

Generates cryptographically strong pseudo-random data. The size argument is a number indicating the number of bytes to generate.

If a callback function is provided, the bytes are generated asynchronously and the callback function is invoked with two arguments: err and buf. If an error occurs, err will be an Error object; otherwise it is null. The buf argument is a Buffer containing the generated bytes.

// Asynchronous
const crypto = require('crypto');
crypto.randomBytes(256, (err, buf) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(`${buf.length} bytes of random data: ${buf.toString('hex')}`);
});

If the callback function is not provided, the random bytes are generated synchronously and returned as a Buffer. An error will be thrown if there is a problem generating the bytes.

// Synchronous
const buf = crypto.randomBytes(256);
console.log(
  `${buf.length} bytes of random data: ${buf.toString('hex')}`);

The crypto.randomBytes() method will block until there is sufficient entropy. This should normally never take longer than a few milliseconds. The only time when generating the random bytes may conceivably block for a longer period of time is right after boot, when the whole system is still low on entropy.