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

[Bryan Ãstergaard]

On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 10:02:09AM -0700, Grant wrote:
> 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
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