[openssh] Re: sshd takes 15 minutes to start

[Steven Whatley]

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Darren Tucker wrote:
> swhatley at hal-pc.org wrote:
> > We are running OpenSSH v3.4p1 on three ES340 Alpha which run Tru64 v5.1A.
> > The last couple of weeks, the system hangs at bootup for 15 minutes at the
> > point where it is bring up sshd.  When I manually stop and start sshd, it still
> > takes 15 minutes.  I manually ran sshd with the -ddd level 3 debug option.
> >  sshd hanges at the message which states it is creating a randomized seed.  It
> > also tkaes 15 minutes to run ssh_keygen.
>
> It sounds like one of the processes run by ssh-rand-helper is now hanging
> for some reason.  This will most likely be one of the binaries replaced in
> your upgrade.

Found the problem.  ssh-rand-helper was getting stuck on calling the
ssh_prng_cmds line 'netstat -ia'.  The netstat command has been locking up
since we installed additional gigabit NICs to set up a private network for
intranet traffic such as NIS, NFS, etc.  By using the -vvv option, I did
see that ssh-rand-helper did time-out on the previous 3 netstat calls but
could not get past the 'netstat -ia' call until it timed out 15 minutes
later.  This still happened with OpenSSH v3.6.1p2.

BTW, great product!

Thanks!
Steven