I just noticed today during booting of unRAID server I see loading the "haveged daemon" when I google I came to the following site:

 

http://www.issihosts.com/haveged/

 

What is the purpose for this daemon? Were is it used for in unRAID?

I think random number generators are pretty standard in all *nix operating systems.  I would guess it's not actually an Unraid specific thing, rather a linux specific thing.  Someone else can chime in what they're actually used for, but suspect google will tell you that too.  I think crypto stuff like ssh and ssl use it (or similar) for a start but someone may correct me.

haveged is loaded through Unraid in "/etc/rc.d/rc.M":

# Start the haveged entropy daemon:
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.haveged ]; then
  /etc/rc.d/rc.haveged start
fi

If I download a file haveged produces load:

 

I stopped the service as follows:

/etc/rc.d/rc.haveged stop
Stopping haveged.

I found no impact. The server runs as usual. So same question. Why is it needed?

 

EDIT: Regarding this blog post haveged becomes active if the entropy of haveged is stronger than the one of /dev/random (linux default). So it adds a little bit more strength to the smb encryption while transfering the file. Conclusion: Produces load, I don't need it. Will be disabled by default through the Go File:

 

# -------------------------------------------------
# disable haveged as we trust /dev/random
# https://forums.unraid.net/topic/79616-haveged-daemon/?tab=comments#comment-903452
# -------------------------------------------------
/etc/rc.d/rc.haveged stop

 

Edited October 16, 20205 yr by mgutt

I know, it's an old thread.... Just for information:

I tested the command on my upgraded Unraid (6.9.2 to 6.10.0) and commented out the line in the go file.

/etc/rc.d/rc.haveged stop
-bash: /etc/rc.d/rc.haveged: No such file or directory