Solved: on Solaris, "couldn't wait for child '...' completion: No child processes"

[Bladt Norbert]

> John Horne [SMTP:J.Horne at plymouth.ac.uk] wrote:
> 
> Emanuel Borsboom <emanuel at heatdeath.org> wrote:
>> Trying to install the portable OpenSSH on Solaris 2.6.  Compiling from
>> openssh-2.1.0.tar.gz using gcc.  Compiles and installs fine.  sshd
>> starts fine.  First connection from another system works.  Child sshd is
>> forked, but the parent dies and logs:
>>
>> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev sshd[6510]: error: Couldn't wait for child
>> '/usr=/bin/ls -alni' completion: No child processes
>> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev last message repeated 3 times
>> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev sshd[6510]: error: -1 Command '/usr/bin/ls
>> -alni=': select() failed: Interrupted system call
>> May 16 11:40:56 qtrade-dev sshd[6510]: error: Couldn't wait for child
>> '/usr=/bin/ls -alni' completion: No child processes
>>
>[rest snipped]

> I too get this on a Sun Ultra 10, Solaris 8 using SSL 0.9.5a; SSH 2.1.0
and
> gcc version 2.95.2. I'll take a look, but don't expect anything since I'm
> not really a C programmer! (sorry)
Me too on Solaris 7.
However, I am a C programmer and I was able to fix it.
The timeout ("interrupted system call" message above)
occurs because the timeout for the entropy commands is
to small (100 msec).
I raised it to 2000 msec (500 msec was too small, too)
and now it works without these error messages.
The messages "No child process" is a consequence of the
interrupted system call message.

The location to fix is in config.h:

/* Builtin PRNG command timeout */
#define ENTROPY_TIMEOUT_MSEC 100

I changed the original 100 to 2000, did a "make sshd" and that's it.

Hope this helps,

Norbert.

P.S. The real fix for the next release would be to either
ask for the timeout value, determine it automagically in
some way or change the hard-coded value of 100 in the "configure"
script to something more reasonable.

-- 
Norbert Bladt
ATAG debis Informatik, TZ1 - Z364
Industriestrasse 1, CH 3052-Zollikofen
E-Mail: norbert.bladt at adi.ch Tel.: +41 31 915 3964 Fax: +41 31 915 3640