forking new process when calling gnutls_global_init() function

[Werner Koch]

On Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:33, h.habib at gmail.com said:

> I am using gnutls and libgcrypt in my application for using TLS in
> HP-UX. But when calling gnutls_global_init() function it forking a new
> process giving following trace
> [New process 28026]
>  warning: reading `r3' register: No data
>  Detaching after fork from process 28026
>
> Can you please help why this new process is being created and how to avoid this.

On systems with a random device, libgcrypt uses an entropy gatherer
which works by running dozens of system tools to gather stats about the
system.  The error message is likely from one of these tools.  I don't
know tryhe trace utility but if you can configure it to also show the
exec call, you will see the culprit.

An easier way to debug this is by setting the envvar:

  GNUPG_RNDUNIX_DBG=filename

The actual code is cipher/rndunix.c . 

A failure of one of the tools is not a real problem.  If track it down
we might be able to exclude that tool for a certain version of HPUX.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner



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