Hi Mathieu,

Mathieu Othacehe <[email protected]> writes:

> Hey Maxim,
>
>> I think it would be good to have that as one option; but ideally I'd
>> prefer if we had some auto-configuration in the installer for using a
>> fully encrypted partition including /boot and /gnu/store that would use
>> a secret key baked in the initrd, like what Tomas is doing, as I don't
>> like to expose unencrypted boot files.
>>
>> It'd be nice to improve the code that GRUB uses to do the
>> decryption... it's so slow that I dread the times I need rebooting my
>> machine ^^'.
>
> Yes, I have also witnessed during Guix Days that some Guix System
> laptops with full-disk encryption were taking ages to boot :)
>
> So this two-times password issue is one thing but fixing the super-slow
> disk decryption in Grub is maybe even more important.  Having a secret
> in the initrd would only help for the first issue sadly.

I think that's correct.

> What would be your concern with unencrypted /boot? As long as the kernel
> and the initramfs are generic they are not confidential I guess. Would
> it be that someone could alter your boot partition when the laptop is
> unattended? If yes, maybe we could consider to propose an official way
> to setup a signed, unencrypted standalone EFI image, similar to what
> Sören is doing[1]?

I think the concern is opening up extra surface for attack (vulnerable
to e.g. evil maid attacks).

Having a way to setup some secure boot would mitigate it and be nice;
encrypted /boot is still appealing to reduce the exposed surface as much
as possible.

-- 
Thanks, Maxim

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