Re: [tlug] eradicate the evil

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

On 22/12/05, Edward Middleton <edward@example.com> wrote:

> Unless you have a really good entropy source I would suggest urandom.
>
> The relevant line being.
>
> # man 4 random
>
>        When the entropy pool is empty,  reads from /dev/random will
> block until additional environmental  noise is gathered.

You are correct--I tend to use /dev/random because Other Unixes don't
necessarily have /dev/urandom.

One fix for this problem, if /dev/urandom is not an option for you:

# Stick a CD in and mount it
`while 1; do find /mnt/cdrom >/dev/null 2>&1; find /dev >/dev/null
2>&1; find /proc >/dev/null 2>&1; done` &
for i in zero random zero random zero; do

   dd if=/dev/$i of=/dev/hda

done

This will generate some entropy. Constantly pinging the machine from
another machine should also help.