Bug#978045: apache2-bin: Immediate exit with "AH00141: Could not initialize random number generator"
I believe it’s a reasonable assumption that the kernel matches the Debian release. If anybody is running with old kernel or disables getrandom I would say they are on their own - also other stuff will break, not only apache2.
Ondrej
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Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org> (He/Him)
> On 27. 12. 2020, at 0:24, Stefan Fritsch <sf@sfritsch.de> wrote:
>
> reassign 978045 libapr1
> found 978045 1.7.0-1
> thanks
>
>> Am 25.12.20 um 03:18 schrieb David W:
>> You can see that the associated call/failure is happening inside APR here, on
>> line 216:
>> https://svn.apache.org/viewvc/apr/apr/trunk/misc/unix/rand.c?revision=1832691&view=markup#l216 <https://svn.apache.org/viewvc/apr/apr/trunk/misc/unix/rand.c?revision=1832691&view=markup#l216>
>> The issue is that if the library is configured (at build time) to
>> USE_GETRANDOM, then it assumes that the getrandom() call will be available and
>> if it fails it becomes a fatal error. On my system, I don't have getrandom()
>> because I'm running an ancient kernel, but others could (more legitimately)
>> have the option disabled on a recent custom-built kernel.
>> I think the correct fix is to not use that build-time option, and go back to
>> using DEV_RANDOM or whatever was being used previously. Alternatively, at
>> least document that a kernel with getrandom() support is required to use
>> apache2.
>> I'm not sure exactly when the packaging on this changed, but I know it was
>> broken in 2.4.46-1 and I *think* it worked in 2.4.43-1, although I can't get a
>> copy of that to double-check anymore.
>
> This changed in libapr1 1.7, re-assigning to apr. I am not sure about the severity, though. According to the man page, getrandom has been introduced in linux 3.17. Debian 9 already has 4.9 so you have to have a kernel that is from Debian 8 to be affected by this.
>
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