Using OpenSSL what does "unable to write 'random state'" mean?

Asked 2008-09-18T16:56:43.447

435

I'm generating a self-signed SSL certificate to protect my server's admin section, and I keep getting this message from OpenSSL:

unable to write 'random state'

What does this mean?

This is on an Ubuntu server. I have upgraded libssl to fix the recent security vulnerability.

openssl

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2 Answers

Apparently, I needed to run OpenSSL as root in order for it to have permission to the seeding file.

answered 2008-09-18T17:09:51.370

The problem for me was that I had .rnd in my home directory but it was owned by root. Deleting it and reissuing the openssl command fixed this.

answered 2011-04-04T10:26:42.150