In tracking down a problem building freeswan I got this
response from a guy on the ipsec list. This is on the new
kernel this list was so kind in helping me get going. It
was built from the 2.2.16-3 SRPM and is running on a compaq
3000 with dual 333MHz PIIs.
I never knew I had to be worried about enough randomness.
What the heck is going on? cat /dev/random spits out a
bunch of garbage that sure looks random to me. I am in WAY
over my head here. Any ideas?
Here is the response I got. If there is not enough context
let me know and I can post my original message.
On Sun, 8 Oct 2000, Bret Hughes wrote:
> Is there something I did wrong? ...
Doesn't look like it...
> 5128 pts/1 S 0:00 |
> | \_ ./ranbits 256
This is the interesting one -- ranbits is sitting there
doing nothing.
*That* means that for some reason, your system has very
little randomness
available in /dev/random. Ranbits is hung, waiting for some
to show up
so it can use it to generate a key.
The quick workaround is to go to another window, and do some
things that
produce randomness -- type on the keyboard, move the mouse,
cause some
disk activity.
A more fundamental question is *why* there's no randomness
on that
machine. That's an unusual problem, one we have no great
insight into...
but it should be tracked down and fixed, because at least a
little bit of
system randomness is important to later operation as well as
the initial
key generation.
Thanks for any help you might give
Bret
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