[openssh] Re: sshd takes 15 minutes to start

[Darren Tucker]

Steven Whatley wrote:
> 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.

If netstat is ignoring SIGTERM or getting stuck in a syscall then
ssh-rand-helper will not be able to kill it (and if it's the latter then
nothing will help).  You can verify that by running "netstat -ia" in one
session then trying to kill it (first with -TERM, then with -KILL) from
another session.  I suspect neither will work.

I don't know if ssh-rand-helper can do anything sane about this....
possibly set a timeout for a few seconds, kill -9 the errant command, then
abandon it and let init clean it up if it exits?  Comments/suggestions
anyone? 

-- 
Darren Tucker (dtucker at zip.com.au)
GPG key 8FF4FA69 / D9A3 86E9 7EEE AF4B B2D4  37C9 C982 80C7 8FF4 FA69
    Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience
usually comes from bad judgement.