ArchLinux OpenSSH Entropy

A new install of ArchLinux on my Qotom went fine until I enabled the SSH server and rebooted it. I had an issue whereby I could not remotely connect to the SSH server until I logged in the first time. After doing some reading online, I saw on a forum someone mentioning the SSH server is probably lacking sufficient entropy to start. So I tried it on my Arch install and voila, it worked. I’m jotting the technique down here so I can remember it for the future.

1. Install rng-tools from the repository

   pacman -Syu rng-tools

2. Start rngd so it can do some gathering right now

   systemctl start rngd

3. Remember to enable rngd so it starts on system boot-up.

   systemctl enable rngd

What actually happened is OpenSSH was lacking sufficient randomization for it to generate session keys. It kept waiting until a sufficient ammount was gathered before it started. However, since the server had almost very little activity, it could not generate sufficient randomization to be fed into /dev/random.

Hopefully this also helps anyone else who might encounter this issue. Cheers.