[SOLVED] setup-alpine started from inittab hangs at repository update

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#1 Sun, 2017-02-26 21:48

jstuyts

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Last seen: 1 year 3 weeks ago
Joined: 2017-01-22

I am working on an installation disk image that can automatically install Alpine on another disk. I start a script from inittab, and this script starts setup-alpine. When setup-alpine needs to update the repository indexes, it hangs. When I press some keys, the script continues. Here are some examples of key combinations that work:

Alt-F2, alt-F1
Space, backspace, space
Ctrl-Q, ctrl-Q

I have tried redirecting the input and output of setup-alpine in the script that starts it, but that does not solve the issue.

What could cause the hanging of setup-alpine at this line from setup-apkrepos: apk update --quiet $apk_root_opt && echo "done."?

#2 Tue, 2017-02-28 22:27

jstuyts

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Last seen: 1 year 3 weeks ago
Joined: 2017-01-22

I found the cause of the problem: lack of entropy. Here are two scenarios that show it is the problem. I have changed the installation media so haveged is installed in the installation environment:

Do not start haveged: The installation hangs for over 2 minutes (I also waited more than 5 minutes without it continuing). When I move the mouse for a couple of seconds after the 2 minutes, the installation continues.
Start haveged when the network starts: The installation hangs for 50+ seconds, and then continues.

I do not have good entropy sources in this test environment with virtual machines, and I doubt if the Xen virtual machines I intent to use on my real server will have good entropy sources. So I am willing to do what the following article says, even if a lot of people say it is a stupid thing to do: http://www.2uo.de/myths-about-urandom/

I will create a new topic to ask how I can switch to using /dev/urandom (for apk, SSL, ...).