differences between random and urandom

Using /dev/random may require waiting for the result as it uses so-called entropy pool, where random data may not be available at the moment.

/dev/urandom returns as many bytes as user requested and thus it is less random than /dev/random.

As can be read from the man page:

random

When read, the /dev/random device will only return random bytes within
the estimated number of bits of noise in the entropy pool. /dev/random
should be suitable for uses that need very high quality randomness
such as one-time pad or key generation. When the entropy pool is
empty, reads from /dev/random will block until additional
environmental noise is gathered.

urandom

A read from the /dev/urandom device will not block waiting for more
entropy. As a result, if there is not sufficient entropy in the
entropy pool, the returned values are theoretically vulnerable to a
cryptographic attack on the algorithms used by the driver. Knowledge
of how to do this is not available in the current unclassified
literature, but it is theoretically possible that such an attack may
exist. If this is a concern in your application, use /dev/random
instead.

For cryptographic purposes you should really use /dev/random because of nature of data it returns. Possible waiting should be considered as acceptable tradeoff for the sake of security, IMO.

When you need random data fast, you should use /dev/urandom of course.

Source: Wikipedia page, man page