Irix: PRNG initialization failed

[Pekka Savola]

Hello all,

In response to this and other suggestions;

Uncommenting DEBUG_ENTROPY #define in entropy.c didn't help at all; no
extra messages were shown.

I also tweaked ssh_prng file in /etc, and and upped the values by changing
0.0X to 0.X.  No effect.  I also tried uncommenting netstat lines, also no
effect.

The PRNG initialization error happens right in the beginning of 'ssh -v',
'ssh-keygen' etc.  -- no other output is generated.

Any other suggestions?

I guess I must debug entropy.c by hand next.

Regards,
 Pekka
 
On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Damien Miller wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Pekka Savola wrote:
> 
> > Hello all,
> > 
> > I tried OpenSSH versions 2.1.1p4, 2.2.0p1 and the latest snapshot briefly
> > on 64-bit Irix 6.5.7f an 6.5.9m.
> > 
> > Both times, no matter what I do, I'll get 'PRNG initialization failed
> > -- exiting'.  This happens with ssh-keygen (the keys aren't even generated
> > yet, ssh binary etc.)
> > 
> > It's clear that Irix etc. don't have a proper entropy pool like *BSD and
> > Linux do, but shouldn't this be at least usable?
> > 
> > FWIW, consigure shows for entropy source:  Builtin (timeout 200).
> > 
> > I read a mention or two about entropy daemons and such, but I'm not sure
> > if those should be a must to get this to run..
>  
> Portable OpenSSH tries to collect randomness by running commands and 
> stirring their output into OpenSSL's random pool. If enough commands
> fail, or not data is read from said commands then you will fail with
> the above error message.
> 
> You may want to adjust the commands in the ssh_prng_cmds to suit your 
> system. If you have any favourites, please send them to me for 
> inclusion.
> 
> Alternately you can debug the execution of the commands by defining 
> the DEBUG_ENTROPY flag in entropy.c
> 
> -d
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "Tell me of difficulties surmounted, 
Pekka.Savola at netcore.fi      not those you stumble over and fall"