[onerng talk] /etc/init.d/rng-tools: Cannot find a hardware RNG device to use.

[Paul Campbell]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 19:04:42 Jason Lewis wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I received my OneRNG today and I'm just having a few problems with getting
> it to work in debian.
> 
> I followed the instructions for installing it, installed the debian package.
> When I install the rng-tools I get this error:
> 
> Preparing to replace rng-tools 2-unofficial-mt.14-1 (using
> .../rng-tools_2-unofficial-mt.14-1_amd64.deb) ... Stopping Hardware RNG
> entropy gatherer daemon: (not running).
> Unpacking replacement rng-tools ...
> Processing triggers for man-db ...
> Setting up rng-tools (2-unofficial-mt.14-1) ...
> Trying to create /dev/hwrng device inode...
> /run/udev or .udevdb or .udev presence implies active udev.  Aborting
> MAKEDEV invocation. Starting Hardware RNG entropy gatherer daemon:
> (Hardware RNG device inode not found) /etc/init.d/rng-tools: Cannot find a
> hardware RNG device to use.
> invoke-rc.d: initscript rng-tools, action "start" failed.

that also looks OK - what's going on here is that we're installing rng-tools 
(in particular rngd), we don't intend to use /dev/hwrng 

> this is in Debian Wheezy. Running as a guest OS in VMWare ESXi.

this is actually  how I've been testing Debian ....

> I have set up the usb passthrough and it appears as though the OneRNG is
> detected by the OS: Bus 002 Device 004: ID 1d50:6086 OpenMoko, Inc.
> 
> and in dmesg:
> 
> [881002.459091] hub 2-2:1.0: USB hub found
> [881002.464469] hub 2-2:1.0: 7 ports detected
> [881003.073678] usb 2-2.1: new full-speed USB device number 4 using uhci_hcd
> [881003.403597] hidraw: raw HID events driver (C) Jiri Kosina
> [881003.431968] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
> [881003.431978] usbhid: USB HID core driver
> [881003.511485] usb 2-2.1: New USB device found, idVendor=1d50,
> idProduct=6086 [881003.511495] usb 2-2.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1,
> Product=3, SerialNumber=3 [881003.511497] usb 2-2.1: Product: 00
> [881003.511502] usb 2-2.1: Manufacturer: Moonbase Otago
> http://www.moonbaseotago.com/random [881003.511504] usb 2-2.1:
> SerialNumber: 00

this looks good

> Any ideas?

so, if you've installed the onerng support package what should be happening 
here is that if you've installed the onerng .deb file a udev script should be 
being started when the device is 'inserted' - that will perform a tampering 
check on the firmware, and if it passes will start rngd to start grabbing data 
from the OneRNG and feeding it to the kernel as required

If it's not starting you might try instrumenting /sbin/onerng.sh to find out 
why

	Paul