Re: [uml-devel] Couldn't obtain random bytes in sshd - problem in RAND_poll?

["David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>]

> Tried many many times, even two running at the same time
> or poll timeout set to zero, not one instance of blocking
> even with
>    od -x /dev/urandom
> and
>    od -x /dev/random
> running simultaneously (the second one blocks, of course).
>
>
> Hmmmm.. what the #$%# is happening here.. more ideas?
>
> --
>                                     Stano

My bet is that '/dev/urandom' only blocks if it doesn't have enough entropy.
Early in the startup process, '/dev/urandom' doesn't have enough entropy,
and your application times out on it.

Later on, when the system has had lots of network activity, you log in and
test '/dev/urandom'. At this point, the system is well-seeded from the
network activity. So it works great for you.

Try launching your test program automatically on boot up at the saem time
you launch ssh or whatever application is failing. I bet '/dev/urandom' will
fail then.

If you have a network, one solution might be to do a few 'ping's or
'nslookup's to seed the entropy pool. You can also keep an entropy pool on
disk, saving it on shutdown and loading it on startup.

Or I could be completely wrong.

DS



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