Subject: /dev/random apparently not configured.
To: None <port-sparc@NetBSD.org>
From: Barrie Bremner <netbsd@barriebremner.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 12/04/2005 23:49:27
Hi all,

Hopefully I'm posting this to the right list.

I've got a Sparcstation 20 netbooting NetBSD 2.0.2 with a custom
kernel, built from an up-to-date netbsd-2 CVS tree.
The machine is running diskless, with NFS filesystem(s) provided by a
Linux box (Fedora Core 4).

When accessing /dev/random I get the following error:

  root@sparc:~> dd if=/dev/random bs=8 count=8
  dd: /dev/random: Device not configured

All the information I've found points to this being caused by the rnd
device not being present in the kernel.
However, I have definitely got the following line in my kernel config
file:

  pseudo-device   rnd

I've deleted and recreated /dev/random as follows:

  root@sparc:~> mknod /dev/random c 119 0   # taken from /dev/MAKEDEV
  root@sparc:~> chmod 444 /dev/random
  root@sparc:~> ls -ltr /dev/random
  cr--r--r--  1 root  wheel  119, 0 Dec  4 23:43 /dev/random

but that doesn't help.

Is this a netbsd-2 thing, a netboot/diskless thing or simply me being
stupid?

Cheers,
-- 
Barrie J. Bremner
netbsd [at] barriebremner.com