Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S933964AbWKWVEa (ORCPT ); Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:04:30 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S933957AbWKWVEa (ORCPT ); Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:04:30 -0500 Received: from srv5.dvmed.net ([207.36.208.214]:697 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S933986AbWKWVE3 (ORCPT ); Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:04:29 -0500 Message-ID: <45660CDA.6090806@garzik.org> Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:04:26 -0500 From: Jeff Garzik User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 (X11/20061107) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: G.Ohrner@post.rwth-aachen.de CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Entropy Pool Contents References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -4.3 (----) X-Spam-Report: SpamAssassin version 3.1.7 on srv5.dvmed.net summary: Content analysis details: (-4.3 points, 5.0 required) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1798 Lines: 55 Gunter Ohrner wrote: > Hi! > > (PEBKAC warning. I'm probably doing something dump. I just don't know > what...) > > I seem to have an entropy pool on a headless machine which is not nearly > empty (a common problem in this case, I know), but completely empty and > stuck in this state... > > Hornburg:~# cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail > 0 > Hornburg:~# fuser /dev/urandom > Hornburg:~# lsof | grep random > Hornburg:~# cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail > 0 > Hornburg:~# dd if=/dev/hdf of=/dev/urandom bs=512 count=1 > 1+0 records in > 1+0 records out > 512 bytes transferred in 0.016268 seconds (31473 bytes/sec) > Hornburg:~# dd if=/dev/hdf of=/dev/random bs=512 count=1 > 1+0 records in > 1+0 records out > 512 bytes transferred in 0.031943 seconds (16029 bytes/sec) > Hornburg:~# cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail > 0 > Hornburg:~# fuser /dev/urandom > Hornburg:~# fuser /dev/random > Hornburg:~# lsof | grep random > Hornburg:~# cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/poolsize > 4096 > Hornburg:~# > > Also causing disk activities doesn't help at all. (Two disks on a Promise > PDC20268 controller.) > > The system runs a rather ancient Debian Sarge 2.4 kernel: > Linux Hornburg 2.4.27-3-386 #1 Thu Sep 14 08:44:58 UTC 2006 i486 GNU/Linux > > However as the machine itself is also ancient, the 2.4 seems like a good > match. And also 2.4 ought to have a refilling entropy pool, doesn't it? > > Maybe someone can shed some light on what's happening here... Grab an entropy generator like egd or audio-entropyd, etc. Jeff - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/