Why is GPG hanging when generating key ?

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      When I am generating my GPG key, GPG is not responding for a long time. Is GPG hanging while generating a key ?

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      When generating a GPG keypair, we often get this message :

      We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform
      some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the
      disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number
      generator a better chance to gain enough entropy.

      Not enough random bytes available. Please do some other work to give
      the OS a chance to collect more entropy! (Need 142 more bytes)

      In Information Theory, there is a term called entropy. An entropy is a measure of unpredictability of information content in a message. Randomness is a measure of uncertainty in an outcome and thus is applied to the concept of information entropy.

      Now, GPG relies heavily on randomly generated keys. We randomly generate a secret key and encrypt secret data using that key. So, in other words, more random a secret key is, more secure the encryption will be.

      But, how should these random bytes be generated ? In fact, there are a number of methods to do that. Keyboard, mouse movements, disk or other hardware are often used to generate these random bytes. A more detailed information on entropy, randomness and how random bytes are generated can be found here : What is entropy in cryptography ?

      So, in other words, GPG generates random secret key and to do that it needs lots of random bytes. It collects those random bytes from keyboard, mouse, disks etc. More busy these devices are, more random byes will be generated and generating GPG key will take lesser time.

      So, if your program hangs when generating a GPG key, try to make your system more busy. You can move your mouse, type on keyboard or run some program that takes lots of resources. That would help.

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