8.1 Install the Haveged Package for Enhanced Entropy

Information

Install the haveged package to provide enhanced entropy for generating cryptographic keys. Haveged is a user space entropy daemon which is not dependent upon the standard mechanisms for harvesting randomness for the system entropy pool. Haveged uses HAVEGE (HArdware Volatile Entropy Gathering and Expansion) to maintain a pool of 1 million random bytes used to fill /dev/random.

Rationale:

It is important for authoritative DNS servers deploying DNSSEC domains to have a good source of entropy to generate secure cryptographic keys. DNS servers are typically not multi-user systems and generally deployed as headless servers. In such situations generating keys without enhanced entropy can be painfully time-consuming, or may lack sufficient entropy. The haveged daemon ensures that keys can be generated timely and securely.

Solution

Install the haveged package with the appropriate package manager and configure it to start, as shown below.



# yum install haveged

# systemctl enable haveged

# systemctl start haveged

Default Value:

The haveged package is not installed or enabled by default.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/2997