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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
From: Francis Litterio <franl AT world DOT std DOT com>
Subject: Re: How to get GnuPG and EGD to work together under Cygwin?
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 13:33:02 -0400
References: <uit0vmn0k DOT fsf AT world DOT std DOT com> <3D90D795 DOT 8010309 AT scytek DOT de>
In-Reply-To: <3D90D795.8010309@scytek.de> (Volker Quetschke's message of
 "Tue, 24 Sep 2002 23:22:29 +0200")
Message-ID: <usmzy9d1y.fsf@world.std.com>
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Volker Quetschke <quetschke AT scytek DOT de> writes:

> > Has anyone managed to get GnuPG and EGD (the Entropy Gathering Daemon --
> > http://egd.sourceforge.net/) to work together under Cygwin?

> never tried ;-) but it should be possible. Did you read the annoncement
> concerning gnupg 1.0.7-3?
>
> http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2002-08/msg01059.html
>
> The relevant part is:
>
> * Fixed the use of loadable modules. Now all modules can be loaded with the
>     --load-extension=<modulename> command. The standard build will link
>     rndlinux statically, but if you run
>     $ ./configure --enable-static-rnd=none
>     then also the rndegd random generator modules will be build as a loadable
>     module. Attention! Now you have to call gpg with --load-extension=rnd???
>     to make it work properly.
>
> Actually, I never tried, but it may work. Please let me know if it does.

I got it to work.  I downloaded the GnuPG source code from the Cygwin
Web site, configured with

	--enable-static-rnd=egd --disable-dev-random

and now it works fine with EGD.  I had to alter EGD to gather data using
commands appropriate for Windows rather than UNIX (e.g., "ps -W" instead
of "vmstat", "netstat -a -n -p tcp" instead of "netstat -ant").  One fun
way to get good entropy is to use this gathering command:

   wget -O - http://www.earthwatch.com/SKYWATCH/images/IRUS2D.jpg

It fetches a periodically-updated ~50 KB JPEG weather satellite image of
North America.  The opportunities for gathering entropy from Webcams are
abundant, and the weather is nicely chaotic!  Talk about the "butterfly
effect" on the weather!  Now a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan can
affect GnuPG key generation around the world.
--
Francis Litterio
franl AT world DOT std DOT com
http://world.std.com/~franl/
GPG and PGP public keys available on keyservers.


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