sshd, prng not seeded, X Login (kde)

Hi , I have knoppix 3.1 installed on HD ct CD). Last week I played around with APM to get the fan on the graphics card to wind down and set the computer in such a suspend mode that i could not reawake it. So the only option was a hard boot. (unfortunate windows habit). after that at the next reboot i had a whole lot of fsck yes, yes y y y y type of loops.

Now I an only get to the graphical X login screen, but when I try to log in nothing happens. I found out that my sshd is not working. by checking dmesg. I assume that X and kde needs sshd. When I type sshd I get the ansewer "prngd not seeded". I checked all kinds of websites (open ssl) but there are no real practical solutions. I dont want to get into hardcore cryptography (yet) to log onto my system. There is a lot of talk about entropy and random generators.

Any practical solution would be greatly appreciated! Such as apt-get install something that would work.

I am also thinking about doeing a complete reinstall, bat taht would be the last resort.
Thank you ,ro

hello,

I don't think you need sshd to login.

Have you tried to boot in another runlevel:

At lilo prompt: press Tab, then press Linux 2 (runlevel 2)

Once you're logged, you can try: startx (to start x server)

You may also try to login you as root in order to run fsck to check your partition.

--You could look into ssh-keygen, but after a bad fsck like that I would seriously reinstall - and next time use a journaled filesystem like reiserfs or ext3.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by smtm

Hi , I have knoppix 3.1 installed on HD ct CD). Last week I played around with APM to get the fan on the graphics card to wind down and set the computer in such a suspend mode that i could not reawake it. So the only option was a hard boot. (unfortunate windows habit). after that at the next reboot i had a whole lot of fsck yes, yes y y y y type of loops.

Now I an only get to the graphical X login screen, but when I try to log in nothing happens. I found out that my sshd is not working. by checking dmesg. I assume that X and kde needs sshd. When I type sshd I get the ansewer "prngd not seeded". I checked all kinds of websites (open ssl) but there are no real practical solutions. I dont want to get into hardcore cryptography (yet) to log onto my system. There is a lot of talk about entropy and random generators.

Any practical solution would be greatly appreciated! Such as apt-get install something that would work.

I am also thinking about doeing a complete reinstall, bat taht would be the last resort.
Thank you ,ro

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I tried the ssh-keygen and got the same answer:(prngd not seeded).

Before I reinstall, is there a quick way to get a listing of all files/ packages that i have installed/modified on the current system? I guess I would want a "find" with some options. Or is there a apt- soemting command that tells me which files i have installed since setting up the system.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by smtm

I tried the ssh-keygen and got the same answer:(prngd not seeded).

Before I reinstall, is there a quick way to get a listing of all files/ packages that i have installed/modified on the current system? I guess I would want a "find" with some options. Or is there a apt- soemting command that tells me which files i have installed since setting up the system.

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Use dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt to get your currently installed packages. Once you re-install then dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt to restore the saved selections to the package system. Then dselect update to update the database and apt-get dselect-upgrade to perform an upgrade using the the restored packages list. You may want to save /etc or the configuration files you modified and restore these as well.

--That's good info, Stephen. In fact I'm going to incorporate that into my bkpcrit script. :)

--Here's a couple methods of finding and sorting all files that have been modified:

o Quick-n-dirty, limited utility:
' ls -tARGg / |less '

--I was going to post a "find" way based on experimentation, but couldn't find a good way to do it in a short amt of time. I was actually going to give up on it but googled ' incremental backup using "find" ' at the last minute. :)

--Adapted from http://www.siwawi.arubi.uni-kl.de/mi...h_backup.html:

' touch -t 200305050000 ~/compfile ' == Create file with desired "newer-than" date for comparison; this file is May 5, 2003, midnight. You can change the date to that of your Knoppix rev.

' find / -xdev -newer ~/compfile ! -type d -print ' == Don't descend into other mounted filesystems, and exclude directory entries

o My "Backup critical files" script... Use whenever you make changes to critical files, especially in /etc. Minimum recommended usage is once every Friday. (Note - all my directories in /mnt have a 0-byte file named NOTHERE in them that disappears while something is mounted there. You can either comment out the -e test for the NOTHERE file inthe script, or ' touch /mnt/blah/NOTHERE ' when nothing is mounted to that dir, to create the file.)

#BEGIN bkpcrit

Code:

---

#!/bin/sh
# Backup critical files (hopefully)

dest='/mnt/zippy'
mount $dest

[ -e "$dest/NOTHERE" ] && echo "$dest NOT MOUNTED" && exit 99

# "If" checking for NOTHERE file...

dest=$dest'/linux-p233-knoppix32'
echo $dest = PK
read

mkdir $dest

# Copy this bkp script to zippy
cp $0 $dest
cp ~/localinfo.dat $dest

dpkg --get-selections > ~/dpkg-selections.txt
## To get your currently installed packages. Once you re-install then:
# dpkg --set-selections < dpkg-selections.txt
## To restore the saved selections to the package system.
#
## Then
# dselect update
## To update the database and
# apt-get dselect-upgrade
## To perform an upgrade using the the restored packages list.

time {
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-ETC-debian.tar.gz /etc
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-DEV-debian.tar.gz /dev
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-rootbin-debian.tar.gz /root
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-davesrc-debian.tar.gz /home/dave/src
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-davebin-debian.tar.gz /home/dave/bin
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-usr-local-debian.tar.gz /usr/local
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-var-dpkg-status.tar.gz /var/lib/dpkg
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-var-dpkg-backups.tar.gz /var/backups

# Dotfiles
cd /root
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-root-dotfiles--restore-locally.tar.gz .[^.]*
cd /home/dave
tar cpvzf $dest/bkp-dave-dotfiles--restore-locally.tar.gz .[^.]*
}

ls $dest -al
df $dest
exit

#/var/adm/inst-log

Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 and beyond David J Bechtel

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.

The GNU Copyleft

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stephen

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by smtm

I tried the ssh-keygen and got the same answer:(prngd not seeded).

Before I reinstall, is there a quick way to get a listing of all files/ packages that i have installed/modified on the current system? I guess I would want a "find" with some options. Or is there a apt- soemting command that tells me which files i have installed since setting up the system.

---

Use dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt to get your currently installed packages. Once you re-install then dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt to restore the saved selections to the package system. Then dselect update to update the database and apt-get dselect-upgrade to perform an upgrade using the the restored packages list. You may want to save /etc or the configuration files you modified and restore these as well.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stephen

Use dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt to get your currently installed packages. Once you re-install then dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt to restore the saved selections to the package system. Then dselect update to update the database and apt-get dselect-upgrade to perform an upgrade using the the restored packages list. You may want to save /etc or the configuration files you modified and restore these as well.

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Stephen, this tip is worth its weight in gold. I'm installing all the apps from one of my boxes onto another as I write this. THANKS!

Adam

Yes I wanted to say thanx as well for this great tip. I built this into my backup scripts which are rsync based.
They are based on the sources found at:
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

Maintaining 5 daily snapshots of the most important files of 8 GB worth of data takes about 1 min each. I included the dpgk listing so i can step back if i encounter problems and want to go back to a state whcih i knew that worked.