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http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25867

[patch] SSL random number seeding errors on startup

           Summary: [patch] SSL random number seeding errors on startup
           Product: Apache httpd-2.0
           Version: 2.0.48
          Platform: Sun
        OS/Version: Solaris
            Status: NEW
          Severity: Normal
          Priority: Other
         Component: mod_ssl
        AssignedTo: [email protected]
        ReportedBy: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Installing httpd-2.0.48 on solaris, with SSL support (openSSL 0.9.7c) led me to
the following error:

[Fri Jan 02 10:18:39 2004] [warn] Init: PRNG still contains insufficient 
entropy!
[Fri Jan 02 10:18:39 2004] [error] Init: Failed to generate temporary 512 bit
RSA private key
Configuration Failed

The SSLRandomSeed directive was set to builtin though, which according to the
docs should always be available. Trying values to point it at my egd socket also
had no effect. A truss of the process showed it trying to open /dev/random,
/dev/srandom, and /dev/urandom anyway. A pretty exhaustive search turned up lots
of people with this problem, but no real definitive answers.

Finally, I figured it out, and I'm guessing the situation is similar for a lot
of people. I had just installed the server, without generating any certificates
yet, so I was using "apachectl start" to make sure the server started up without
SSL support. This of course doesn't define "SSL" on the command line, and the
entire ssl.conf is wrapped in an <IFdefined SSL>. So therefore, the
SSLRandomSeed directive was never getting read, and apache was asking openssl
for the default /dev/random.

So "apachectl start" seems to be broken if the server is compiled with mod_ssl
and the platform does not have a /dev/random. The most obvious fix is to move
the SSLRandomSeed directives outside of the IFdefine SSL, making them execute
regardless of the SSL setting (but still only included if mod_ssl is present). A
patch to do just that for ssl-std.conf.in is included. 

If this isn't an appropriate solution, or "apachectl start" is not supported for
ssl-enabled installations, then this should be at least mentioned in the docs or
FAQ, probably where the mention of this exact error message occurs (in the
"About installation" section), as it seems to be pretty commonly encountered
(sometimes with a different root cause, but I'd imagine this one is pretty
common judging by the number of identical questions out there on the web with no
definitive answer).

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