GPG error "Not enough random bytes available. Please do some other work to give the OS a chance to collect more"

I am using:

 gpg --gen-key

Is there a better way to create a PGP key? What does this program want? A fully slammed server?

> Not enough random bytes available. Please do some other work to give the OS a chance to collect more

Depending on your system hardware, you might have more reliable success using a bridge between the hardware TRNG (True random number generator) and the kernel entropy pool.

I have found a remarkable speed increase by using rng-tools in the universe repository, which can be installed with Synaptic or another GUI package manager, or via the command-line:

sudo apt-get install rng-tools

Executing the following command in the background works for me:

sudo find / -type f | xargs grep somerandomstring > /dev/null

You can move your mouse around, browse the internet, play a game, leave your computer on overnight. There are many many ways to generate random bytes. You don't need to babysit the gpg process.

EDIT: I should clarify: you don't need to pay attention or even type into the terminal that gpg is running in. (And it's a really bad idea to type into that terminal anyway.)

If you're on a remote server, and cannot otherwise generate work, you can try this: http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/stress. Use caution, though.

I found that just moving the program to the background worked even over an ssh interface:

1. move the task to the background (Ctrl+z)
2. perform a few short tasks (cd ~ && ./my-time-waster.sh)
3. move the task to the foreground (fg)
4. wait a minute or two

I'm using CentOS5 and CentOS6.

Try using rngd, but without the -r /dev/random you will often see people advise (which will lead to insecure GPG keys). On my machine, just installing rngd installs a daemon which fills up my entropy quickly, and securely.