>>>>> "David" == David Brooks <daveb@???> writes:
David> Marc Haber wrote:
>>> Missing entropy?
>>>
>>> Just to test it: (re)move /dev/random and symlink /dev/urandom
>>> as /dev/random.
>> A better test on Linux would be to check the entropy pool
>> itself, cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail.
>>
>> Also I'd like to know which OS/Distribution the OP is using.
David> Thanks for the advice. Entropy does sound like a plausible
David> reason, although I have plenty of other crypto apps and I
David> didn't notice any of them hanging in this way. The server
David> in question is a 'user mode linux' virtual server, and
David> there has been mention of lack of entropy as a possible
David> problem with this setup.
I suspected as much - check the user-mode-linux archives. The entropy
problem under u-m-l was known for a while but I think Jeff Dike fixed
it with the hwrng u-m-l driver. I think the solution is an upgrade to
a newer u-m-l. Ah, here it is :-
+config UML_RANDOM
+ tristate "Hardware random number generator"
+ help
+ This option enables UML"s "hardware" random number generator. It
+ attaches itself to the host"s /dev/random, supplying as much entropy
+ as the host has, rather than the small amount the UML gets from its
+ own drivers. It registers itself as a standard hardware random number
+ generator, major 10, minor 183, and the canonical device name is
+ /dev/hwrng.
+ The way to make use of this is to install the rng-tools package
+ (check your distro, or download from
+ http://sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel/). rngd periodically reads
+ /dev/hwrng and injects the entropy into /dev/random.
+
You'll need 2.6.x where x > 12 at least (possibly 15).
Sincerely,
Adrian Phillips
--
Who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare ?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare/
