Menu
▾
▴
#8 Lack of entropy - empty /dev/random
This is not exactly a bug, but a big misfeature.
Since coLinux doesn't collect entropy, the entropy pool is
constantly empty, which is the cause of /dev/random
being empty. Applications that rely on it will just freeze
don't work. I think coLinux should use some legacy
methods for entropy collection, or at least temporarily
provide urandom or other sources.
Logged In: NO
There seems to be similar issue in UML too. Agree with you
that it is quite a bit misfeature.
Logged In: YES
user_id=3562
According to the wiki's page "RandomNotes" (http://www.colinux.org/wiki/index.php/RandomNotes), you can work around this bug/misfeature by typing something in the ftlk console. This will serve as the entropy source for a little while at least.
For example when using Subversion and committing a source change (svn commit), you may need to do this workaround for about 5 seconds. (Monkeys to typewriters: start!)
Why can't colinux collect entropy from the network as a stop-gap feature? I have heard that collecting entropy from the network is not random enough (or a security problem), though.
Logged In: YES
user_id=206105
In many cases, it's better that it remains 'unsolved' - for
things like crypto, it's 'not sending' versus 'sending weakly
encrypted'. If your life depends on the confidentiality of a
message, you'd prefer it not being sent.
Logged In: YES
user_id=493291
This is a huge issue for me as well. I've actually resorted
to doing the following on my coLinux installation:
mv /dev/random /dev/random.orig
ln /dev/urandom /dev/random
...as this appears to be the only way to get any kind of
random-number stuff out of the system. May not be very
random, so you can't trust this for any kind of real
cryptographic security, but at least programs that rely upon
/dev/random (Subversion, et al) will now work without manual
intervention.
Logged In: YES
user_id=1233451
While this doesn't resolve the issue it is a "quick fix"
that may go some way to alleviating the noted problem:
* Create a link from /dev/urandom to /dev/random
Logged In: YES
user_id=579204
Originator: NO
The branch devel (from snapshot) with kernel 2.6.22 uses Networking interrupts for entropy. That is not the best, but better as blocking.
Logged In: NO
$ equery uses apr
[ Found these USE variables for dev-libs/apr-1.3.2 ]
+ + urandom : Use /dev/urandom instead of /dev/random
it's lucky that i'm using gentoo so i can use urandom for it so my subversion works "just fine". good to know i can "Create a link from /dev/urandom to /dev/random" to slow problems beside apr. but if the entropy is not enough, it's unsecure.