On Wednesday 01 October 2003 15:54, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 03:31:44PM +0300, Oded Arbel wrote:
> > I'm having a problem with a server, where apparently I don't have any
> > entropy left in /dev/random :
> > # sysctl -A | grep random
> > kernel.random.entropy_avail = 0

> Why not use /dev/urandom? that one never blocks.

1. its lower quality
2. Its not my software, and I don't feel like messing around with the source 
code right now. I'll do that if I'll have no choice, but seeing as /dev/
random is important to have, I though I'd try to deal with the source of the 
problem first.

> It's possile, yes. Looking at the code (2.4.23-pre5, but I doubt there
> were major changes in this area in the vanilla kernels), 

I'm not using vanilla - I prefer buttermilk myself, but I have grsecurity 
patches. AFAIK, grsecurity shouldn't turn off any entropy generation - it 
relies on good quality entropy pool to add more randomacity to stuff the 
kernel does.

> the relevant 
> function is add_blkdev_randomness, which works at the block layer, not
> the file system layer, so it doesn't have much to do with
> reiserfs. 

Then, could you please offer a hypothesis as to why my dev/random is empty ?

> Quoting from drivers/char/random.c for ways for you to 
> generate entropy:

As I understand these need to be implemented in the kernel, at the device 
level. is it possible that some are "turned off" or something ?

-- 
Oded

::..
Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.

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