Helping The Random Number Generator To Gain Enough Entropy With rng-tools (Debia

[ Thanks to Falko Timme for this link. ]

"You might know this situation: you want to generate a GPG or SSL key, and during that operation, your system tells you that no more random bytes are available and that it needs to collect more entropy, and you are stuck. This short guide tells you how to solve this problem with the package rng-tools on Debian Lenny.

"I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

"1 Preliminary Note

"Let's assume you want to generate a GPG key:

"gpg --gen-key

"If you are unlucky, the command might stop in the middle with a message like this:

"We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number generator a better chance to gain enough entropy."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Remote root vulnerability in Exim(Dec 10, 2010)
• 7 Practical uses of Openssl(Dec 09, 2010)
• Red Hat warns of hole in OpenSSL(Nov 17, 2010)
• Manage RADIUS for WPA-Enterprise with CIITIX and Linux(Oct 29, 2010)
• Setting Up An OpenVPN Server With Authentication Against OpenLDAP On Ubuntu 10.0(Sep 29, 2010)
• The EFF SSL Observatory(Aug 06, 2010)
• Disk encryption on Fedora 13(Jun 03, 2010)