I get a strange error code when trying to do a keygen. The error is to the effect of "PRNG not seeded". What does it mean? How is it corrected?

PRNG stands for PseudoRandom Number Generator which is used to generate reasonably random numbers for cryptographic purposes. Many PRNG algorithms require an initial random number to "seed" the random number generation. In many cases this is some entropic value gathered from the system. Usually this is stored in /dev/random and /dev/urandom. See man pages of rand, random, urandom.

How this applies to your error, I don't know. Could you provide more details about the *exact* command you're using to generate keys, the *exact* error message and preferably any debugging info (most keygen commands have some kind of option for debugging or verbose output).

Thank you for the prompt and insightful reply.

The error message is

"PRNG not seeded"

It occurs when the following command line is executed:

"keygen -t rsa"

used to generate a key for some ssh (non-password) exchanges.

Can you create standard rsa keys using the openssl commandline toolkit? To generate an private rsa key use:

openssl genrsa -out /path/to/file 1024