Re: [gentoo-user] Apache2 "generating secret" takes a long time

[Grant]

> > Apache2 used to stop and start for me very quickly, but in the last
> > few days I've noticed it takes a very long time to start.  It seems to
> > be hanging on:
> >
> > Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
> >
> > although it does eventually move on and everything works fine.  Does
> > anyone know why this might have changed?  I update all packages on my
> > system daily so there may have been a package change that did it.
>
> You're running out of entropy so apache is waiting on /dev/random to
> gain more entropy.
>
> There's several different ways to fix this including:
>
> 1. Use a hardware RNG (random number generator), some chipsets provide
> that but you need to enable support in the kernel.
> 2. emerge apr with USE=urandom. This makes apr use /dev/urandom instead
> of /dev/random. urandom isn't as strong cryptographically speaking as
> random but might be good enough for your use.
> 3. Disable digest authentication in the apache configuration.
> 4. Use some entropy gathering daemon like sys-apps/clrngd,
> media-sound/sound-entropyd or media-video/video-entropyd.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Regards,
> Bryan Østergaard

Very nice.  Thanks Bryan.

- Grant

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