GnuPG Encryption -> Fails

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#1 Tue, 08/14/2007 - 13:04
webinger

GnuPG Encryption -> Fails

When is put in all the required data and push "setup GnuPG" i have to wait very long about 1 min and then i get:

Failed to create secret key :

password Repeat passphrase:

We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number generator a better chance to gain enough entropy. ++++++++++.++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++.++++++++++.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++..+++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++>+++++.........>+++++.....................................................................................<+++++.........>+++++<+++++...+++++

Not enough random bytes available. Please do some other work to give the OS a chance to collect more entropy! (Need 273 more bytes)

any idea how to fix that?

Tue, 08/14/2007 - 17:48
Joe
Joe's picture

Hey Martin,

Yes, this is a GPG error, but I can see how it would be confusing, since there's not a lot of ways to &quot;do more work&quot; in a web page. Basically, what's happening here is that GPG is trying to find some &quot;randomness&quot;, which computers are very bad at providing on their own. So you have to do some stuff that is random.

If a box is in service as a web and mail server and receiving lots of requests, this error would never appear. But since yours doesn't appear to be very heavily used yet and probably isn't a desktop machine where you can just move the mouse around, you'll have to fake it. You could kick off an updatedb to generate some disk usage, fire up a kernel compile or some other kind of software build, or do a recursive grep for something, while key generation is happening.

Here's two example commands that'll probably generate enough randomness to make gpg happy:

[code:1]
# updatedb

# grep -R foobar /
[/code:1]&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Post edited by: Joe, at: 2007/08/14 17:49

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