Why does mod_ssl stop with the error “Failed to generate temporary 512 bit RSA private key” when I start Apache?
Cryptographic software needs a source of unpredictable data to work correctly. Many open source operating systems provide a “randomness device” that serves this purpose (usually named /dev/random). On other systems, applications have to seed the OpenSSL Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) manually with appropriate data before generating keys or performing public key encryption. As of version 0.9.5, the OpenSSL functions that need randomness report an error if the PRNG has not been seeded with at least 128 bits of randomness. To prevent this error, mod_ssl has to provide enough entropy to the PRNG to allow it to work correctly. This can be done via the SSLRandomSeed directive.
Cryptographic software needs a source of unpredictable data to work correctly. Many open source operating systems provide a “randomness device” that serves this purpose (usually named /dev/random). On other systems, applications have to seed the OpenSSL Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) manually with appropriate data before generating keys or performing public key encryption. As of version 0.9.5, the OpenSSL functions that need randomness report an error if the PRNG has not been seeded with at least 128 bits of randomness. To prevent this error, mod_ssl has to provide enough entropy to the PRNG to allow it to work correctly. This can be done via the SSLRandomSeed directives.
Related Questions
- I am trying to encrypt a megabyte of data using a 1024 bit RSA key but when I do I get an error indicating RSA will not process more than 127 bytes of data. Why won it work?
- When I fire up the server, mod_ssl stops with the error "Failed to generate temporary 512 bit RSA private key", why?
- Why does mod_ssl stop with the error "Failed to generate temporary 512 bit RSA private key" when I start Apache?
