Kent, Thanks for responding. I am not logged in remotely but locally. I've had a "cat /dev/random" running in a GNOME Terminal tab (window) now for several hours while I read mail & surfed. It has printed nothing out. It has never printed anything out, even at the very beginning. I also moved the mouse for a good thirty seconds. Nothing. So it appears to me that something else is wrong or improperly set up. What happens when you cat /dev/random? Do you get some stuff out and then periodicly as more entropy becomes available? --- Vladimir P.S. I thought I remembered reading that network traffic was added to the entropy pool. Since I am listening to Internet radio, there are always packets coming in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vladimir G. Ivanovic http://leonora.org/~vladimir 2770 Cowper St. vladimir@xxxxxxx Palo Alto, CA 94306-2447 +1 650 678 8014 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> "kb" == Kent Borg <kentborg@xxxxxxxx> writes: kb> kb> On Thu, May 13, 2004 at 11:54:48AM -0700, Vladimir G. Ivanovic wrote: >> Well, I did as suggested. Nothing. 'cat' hangs: >> >> open("/dev/random", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = 3 >> fstat64(3, {st_mode=S_IFCHR|0644, st_rdev=makedev(1, 8), ...}) = 0 >> read(3, >> >> and never writes anything to the screen. >> >> How do I get GnuPG to generate keys? Do I have a problem with >> /dev/random? (/dev/urandom seems to work. It spits out garbage >> continuously when cat'ed.) kb> kb> kb> I can maybe help a little here. kb> kb> /dev/random pulls random numbers from the kernel's entropy pool, and kb> if the kernel estimates that there is not enough entropy, it blocks kb> until there is enough entropy. /dev/urandom also produces random kb> numbers but it doesn't block when the entropy estimation runs out. kb> Normally /dev/urandom is about as good as /dev/random, but NOT in your kb> case, because you seem to have no source of entropy. kb> kb> The easiest and least controversial source of entropy for most kb> computers is the timing of mouse mouse movement. The keyboard is also kb> good. Less good is the timing of network packets or variation in disk kb> activity timings. Keyboards and mice usually default to producing kb> entropy, I don't think other sources do. kb> kb> In your case you seem to have no sources of entropy. Are you logged kb> in remotely? (If so, can someone wiggle the mouse?) kb> kb> Off the top of my head, I don't know what you should do next. I think kb> there is a way to enable entropy collection for a given device on a kb> live machine, but I don't remember how. kb> kb> kb> kb> A related issue: On shutdown the system saves the entropy pool to kb> disk, and on startup it restores the entropy pool from disk. This kb> means the very first time a new install boots, there is no entropy kb> until some hgas had a chance to build up from someplace. At least in kb> RH 9 the system also creates some keys on the first boot--at a point kb> when there is no entropy! (I forget which keys, I know I created kb> fresh ones on my box once I discovered that.) Does Fedora have this kb> bug too? kb> kb> kb> -kb kb> kb> kb> -- kb> fedora-list mailing list kb> fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx kb> To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list kb>
