Thanks Tom and Reece for replying. It turns out that the cryptolib/cryptsrc/random source combination I specified -- openssl/system/openssl -- was the problem; changing the combination to openssl/builtin/openssl, "solved" the problem.
~/contrib/pgcrypto/Makefile snippet: # either 'builtin', 'mhash', 'openssl' cryptolib = openssl # builtin # either 'builtin', 'system' cryptsrc = system # builtin <<< problem; revert to 'builtin' # Random source, preferred order: # 'dev' - read from random device # # 'openssl' - use openssl PRNG. # Note that currently pgcrypto does not do any # entropy feeding to it # This works ofcouse only with cryptolib = openssl # # 'silly' - use libc random() - very weak random = openssl # silly ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])