"PRNG is not seeded" error when starting OpenSSH server

germanbird · 12-28-2003, 10:33 PM

I just installed Slackware 9.1 on an old box I had laying around. I've spent the last week working out bugs and learning about the OS. This error has me stumped, though.

Whenever I try to start up the OpenSSH SSH server, I get the error "PRNG is not seeded." I've traced it to the call to ssh-keygen in the rc.sshd script, but am not sure what exactly is causing the problem.

Any ideas?

- Kyle

germanbird · 12-28-2003, 11:46 PM

Ahh. Problem solved.

I traced the error back to OpenSSL. I then discoved that /dev/urandom was not functioning. So, I recreated the device and my SSH server seems to be starting up fine.

- Kyle

steve@ez.net · 12-31-2005, 02:38 PM

How do you "re-create" a device?

btmiller · 01-01-2006, 12:29 AM

Generally, you would use mknod with the correct parameters (type of device, major, and minor number). See the man page for more details.

germanbird · 01-08-2006, 03:16 PM

In my case, I seem to recall the problem being that the system device file package (a/devs-*.tgz) did not get installed properly when I setup the system. /dev/urandom may not have even existed. Reinstalling the package solved the problem.

Kyle

steve@ez.net · 01-12-2006, 01:31 PM

Thanks guys for the suggestions. The problem appears to be random and a retry of the command line generally makes the error disappear. So it remains a mystery. However functionality appears to remain intact.

Thanks much.