For Bionic I have spawned a guest and checked how as-of today it responds to deleting it's /var/cache/pollinate. Initially: $ systemctl status pollinate ● pollinate.service - Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/pollinate.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2021-02-16 09:13:12 UTC; 47s ago Process: 775 ExecStart=/usr/bin/pollinate (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Main PID: 775 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Feb 16 09:13:11 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Starting Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator... Feb 16 09:13:11 h-qemu-modules pollinate[841]: client sent challenge to [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:13:12 h-qemu-modules pollinate[885]: client verified challenge/response with [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:13:12 h-qemu-modules pollinate[896]: client hashed response from [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:13:12 h-qemu-modules pollinate[897]: client successfully seeded [/dev/urandom] Feb 16 09:13:12 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Started Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator. After $ rm -rf /var/cache/pollinate $ reboot ... $ systemctl status pollinate ● pollinate.service - Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/pollinate.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2021-02-16 09:14:43 UTC; 7s ago Process: 750 ExecStart=/usr/bin/pollinate (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE) Main PID: 750 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE) Feb 16 09:14:43 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Starting Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator... Feb 16 09:14:43 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: pollinate.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Feb 16 09:14:43 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: pollinate.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. Feb 16 09:14:43 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Failed to start Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator Then Install the new version $ sudo apt install pollinate Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be upgraded: pollinate 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 34 not upgraded. Need to get 11.8 kB of archives. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-proposed/main amd64 pollinate all 4.33-0ubuntu1~18.04.2 [11.8 kB] Fetched 11.8 kB in 0s (219 kB/s) (Reading database ... 60178 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../pollinate_4.33-0ubuntu1~18.04.2_all.deb ... Unpacking pollinate (4.33-0ubuntu1~18.04.2) over (4.33-0ubuntu1~18.04.1) ... Setting up pollinate (4.33-0ubuntu1~18.04.2) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2ubuntu0.1) ... ubuntu@h-qemu-modules:~$ systemctl status pollinate ● pollinate.service - Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/pollinate.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2021-02-16 09:16:12 UTC; 6s ago Process: 1569 ExecStart=/usr/bin/pollinate (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Main PID: 1569 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Feb 16 09:16:12 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Starting Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator... Feb 16 09:16:12 h-qemu-modules pollinate[1594]: client sent challenge to [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:16:12 h-qemu-modules pollinate[1608]: client verified challenge/response with [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:16:12 h-qemu-modules pollinate[1615]: client hashed response from [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:16:12 h-qemu-modules pollinate[1616]: client successfully seeded [/dev/urandom] Feb 16 09:16:12 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Started Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator. rm + reboot with new version $ sudo rm -rf /var/cache/pollinate $ sudo reboot $ systemctl status pollinate ● pollinate.service - Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/pollinate.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2021-02-16 09:17:18 UTC; 8s ago Process: 746 ExecStart=/usr/bin/pollinate (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Main PID: 746 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Feb 16 09:17:17 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Starting Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator... Feb 16 09:17:17 h-qemu-modules pollinate[806]: client sent challenge to [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:17:18 h-qemu-modules pollinate[847]: client verified challenge/response with [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:17:18 h-qemu-modules pollinate[855]: client hashed response from [https://entropy.ubuntu.com/] Feb 16 09:17:18 h-qemu-modules pollinate[856]: client successfully seeded [/dev/urandom] Feb 16 09:17:18 h-qemu-modules systemd[1]: Started Pollinate to seed the pseudo random number generator. Looking good now! Thereby setting bionic to verified as well.