Re: How to create entropy?

[Greg Troxel <gdt%ir.bbn.com@localhost>]

Christian Baer <christian.baer%uni-dortmund.de@localhost> writes:

> Hi there people!
>
> I'm kinda stuck, creating a cgd. The problem is that it hangs while
> creating the config file. The guide says that this is because there
> isn't enough entropy. Somehow I find that hard to believe especially
> since I *did* wipe the device as recommended earlier in the
> guide. There should be plenty of entropy to graze from. :-)
>
> Moving the mouse or hitting keys on the console is a bit of a problem
> as the machine has none. I only access it via ssh. I do have a serial
> console but I went on hammering the keyboard for several minutes
> without cgdconfig finishing it's job.
>
> What can I do? How do I create a lot of randomness?

I have had similar problems (not gdb, but other things that read
/dev/random), especially on domUs.  I run 'du / > /dev/null' and that
generates enough disk interrupts to get randomness.

Perhaps we need randomd(8) that watches the entropy level and when too
low reads files from the filesystem to bring it back.