Apache2 hangs with ‘Digest: generating secret for digest authentication’
I was running Apache2+SSL on a VM (Virtual Machine).
After enabling SSL and trying to add another SSL site, apache would refuse to restart and the following error would show up in /var/log/apache2.log
Digest: generating secret for digest authentication
After doing some research, it turns out that the VM did not have enough entropy to generate much of anything. Increasing this is easy, but may not be completely secure.
$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail
139
139
I found that rng-tools could help me solve this.
apt-get install rng-tools
Start the service
rngd -r /dev/urandom -o /dev/random
After running rngd, the entropy will increase at a gradual rate.
cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail
2220
2220
If you want this to survive a reboot, you’ll need to put it in a startup script.