Re: Cannot run OpenSSH 3.1p1 on Solaris 8, Irix 6.5.14, Irix 6.5.4, SunOS 4.1.3_U1 - ssh-rand-helper child produced insufficient data

From: Richie B. (richie@no-spam-here.com)
Date: 04/07/02 

From: richie@no-spam-here.com (Richie B.)
Date: 7 Apr 2002 09:30:08 -0700

Andy Ozment <anonymous@no-spam.edu> wrote in message news:<3C893D83.EECD23A6@no-spam.edu>...
> I have successfully compiled OpenSSH 3.1p1 for the following systems:
> Solaris 8
> Solaris 7
> Irix 6.5.14
> Irix 6.5.4
> SunOS 4.1.3_U1
>
> Unfortunately, the new sshd is not working on any of the above systems
> with the exception of Solaris 7. (I then put the Solaris 7 executables
> on Solaris 8, and they worked there too.)
>
> This is the error I'm getting:
> $ /usr/etc/sshd -D -d -d -d
> debug3: Seeing PRNG from /usr/libexec/ssh-rand-helper
> ssh-rand-helper child produced insufficient data

There is a bug with select() in an unpatched Solaris 2.6 (and probably
Solaris 7 too) system which causes ssh-rand-helper to always fail
(because it cannot read entropy from the programs set up in
ssh_prng_cmds). Upgrade libc and the Solaris kernel and see if it
makes a difference. It did for us.

On the other systems, make sure you have the ssh_prng_cmds file in the
right place and filled with the right commands. If everything else
fails, edit ssh-rand-helper.c and make line 758 look like this:

 log_init(argv[0], SYSLOG_LEVEL_DEBUG3, SYSLOG_FACILITY_USER, 1);

Then run "ssh-rand-helper > /dev/null" to see why it is failing. This
is how I stumbled upon the select() bug in Solaris. Change 1 to 0 in
the above line to have the debug messages sent to syslogd.

Richie 

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