diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index cc8cf8424..a28ed3e07 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -367,6 +367,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "pretty_assertions",
  "procfs",
  "rand",
+ "rand_pcg",
  "regex",
  "rlimit",
  "selinux",
@@ -1664,6 +1665,15 @@ dependencies = [
  "getrandom",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "rand_pcg"
+version = "0.3.1"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "59cad018caf63deb318e5a4586d99a24424a364f40f1e5778c29aca23f4fc73e"
+dependencies = [
+ "rand_core",
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "rayon"
 version = "1.5.3"
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 6086b968e..ce528c41e 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -408,6 +408,7 @@ rlimit = "0.8.3"
 [target.'cfg(unix)'.dev-dependencies]
 nix = { version = "0.25", default-features = false, features = ["process", "signal", "user"] }
 rust-users = { version="0.11", package="users" }
+rand_pcg = "0.3"
 
 [build-dependencies]
 phf_codegen = "0.11.1"
diff --git a/tests/by-util/test_sort.rs b/tests/by-util/test_sort.rs
index ff4c79427..5c753470a 100644
--- a/tests/by-util/test_sort.rs
+++ b/tests/by-util/test_sort.rs
@@ -1117,14 +1117,36 @@ fn test_tmp_files_deleted_on_sigint() {
 
     let (at, mut ucmd) = at_and_ucmd!();
     at.mkdir("tmp_dir");
+    let file_name = "big_file_to_sort.txt";
+    {
+        use rand::{Rng, SeedableRng};
+        use std::io::Write;
+        let mut file = at.make_file(file_name);
+        // approximately 20 MB
+        for _ in 0..40 {
+            let lines = rand_pcg::Pcg32::seed_from_u64(123)
+                .sample_iter(rand::distributions::uniform::Uniform::new(0, 10000))
+                .take(100000)
+                .map(|x| x.to_string() + "\n")
+                .collect::<String>();
+            file.write_all(lines.as_bytes()).unwrap();
+        }
+    }
     ucmd.args(&[
-        "ext_sort.txt",
+        file_name,
         "--buffer-size=1", // with a small buffer size `sort` will be forced to create a temporary directory very soon.
         "--temporary-directory=tmp_dir",
     ]);
     let mut child = ucmd.run_no_wait();
     // wait a short amount of time so that `sort` can create a temporary directory.
-    std::thread::sleep(Duration::from_millis(100));
+    let mut timeout = Duration::from_millis(100);
+    for _ in 0..5 {
+        std::thread::sleep(timeout);
+        if read_dir(at.plus("tmp_dir")).unwrap().next().is_some() {
+            break;
+        }
+        timeout *= 2;
+    }
     // `sort` should have created a temporary directory.
     assert!(read_dir(at.plus("tmp_dir")).unwrap().next().is_some());
     // kill sort with SIGINT