Hi list. I have a headless server somewhere which runs some applications which depend on /dev/random to provide entropy (specifically cyrus-imapd). Now since the server is headless, /dev/random never has enough random bits to provide and as a result reads on it block forever, which causes problems to services that depend on random data being available.
I configured all applications I could to use /dev/urandom but some I was unable too. I read in several places on the web that one can either symlink /dev/random to /dev/urandom or simply change the major and minor device id of /dev/random to that of /dev/urandom and there by solving the problem by using a slightly less secure source of randomness. The problem I'm having is that neither solution works for me - I failed to symlink or recreate the device node because for some reason I cannot remove the current /dev/random. Even after I stop all programs that use it (and check using lsof), every time I try to rm /dev/random, I get the error "Operation not permitted". Why ? And if we are on the subject - is it possible to feed entropy (from a trusted source of course) into /dev/random so that it is available to applications ? I was thinking about getting random bits from lavarand or random.org to fuel my server's /dev/random. TIA -- Oded ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
