Clarification: OpenSSH entropy sources?

I got no reply from comp.security.ssh so I'm forwarding it to the list. Any straight answers on this tremendously appreciated.

thanks,
Jonathan

> I am building OpenSSL 0.9.7b and OpenSSH 3.6.1p1 under Solaris 8. My
> OpenSSL is configured to use the Solaris /dev/random supplied in
112438-01.
>
> With OpenSSH 3.6.1p1, how are entropy sources handled? During
> configuration, it identifies that OpenSSL's PRNG is internally seeded;
this
> is true, due to the existence of /dev/random.
>
> But, my confusion comes from the use of OpenSSH's rand-helper. If you run
> "configure" with "--with-rand-helper", at the end of the configuration you
> get:
>
> Random number source: ssh-rand-helper
internal
> source and just "fall back" to ssh-rand-helper if need be? I saw a
previous
> post where someone says the latter is true; however, due to the warning
you
> get at configuration time it makes me think it's only trying to use
> ssh-rand-helper and never tries OpenSSL's internal source. OTOH, I never
> get "PRNG not seeded" messages, so maybe it isn't starving for entropy.
> Can someone explain what is really happening?
>
> thanks!
> Jonathan
>
>
Received on Fri May 2 14:03:59 2003