Hi, I am using FAI 2.10.1 and the 2.6.16 FAI kernel. I am trying to run a script that executes the following command during an FAI install:
$ROOTCMD kdb5_util create -s -P $PASSWD The script is a hook and it is called configure.KERBEROS. Now when I use the 2.6.16 kernel the command freezes. When I use the 2.4.27 kernel it works fine. I looked into it and the problem is a lack of entropy. I have my scripts run this command right before the above command is executed: cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail which generally gives a result of around 300. According the the /dev/random manpage entropy_avail should be equal to 4096. Now I can raise the entropy manually be typing at my keyboard or by copying files, etc. which does fix the problem. So a workaround would be to do something like this: cp -r /tmp/target/usr /tmp/target/tmp/ rm -r /tmp/target/tmp/usr/ which raised the entropy from 159 to 2360 in one test. At first I thought that possibly the kernel was not using the hard drive as an entropy source but it clearly is. Now by the time configure.KERBEROS is executed the disk should have seen lots of activity and entropy should be good but it is not. I preformed some tests to figure out what is going on. 1. First I wait until the install gets to configure.KERBEROS then I press ctrl+c 2. Run "cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail" which says that entropy is at 176. 3. Run "cp -r /tmp/target/usr /tmp/target/tmp/" then "rm -r /tmp/target/tmp/usr/" 4. Run "cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail" again which gives 1042. 5. Wait about ten minutes and type "cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail" which gives an entropy of 175. Now doing the same steps on the 2.4.27 kernel the entropy ends up at 3688. So the question is why is the entropy being depleted so quickly with the 2.6.16 kernel? David Riddle
