Bug#517471: ability to configure the random key encryption of tmp partitions during installaion

2009-03-13 Thread M. McGowan
Sorry, I sent this to the wrong address.

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On 3/1/09, M. McGowan m.mcgowan...@googlemail.com wrote:
 On 2/28/09, Max Vozeler x...@debian.org wrote:
 reassign 517471 partman-crypto
 thanks

 On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 06:25:23PM -0500, M. McGowan wrote:
 It is possible to encrypt loop-aes and dm-crypt tmp (like /tmp or
 /var/tmp) partitions with a random key at boot time, but the Debian
 installer will not configure this. The installer will only configure
 swap partitions like that.

 Have you tried configuring the partition with a
 random key, and then setting Use as of the encrypted
 partition to e.g. ext2 ?

 The installer should take care of setting the fstab/
 crypttab flags as appropriate for tmp.

 If that doesn't work, it would indicate a bug we need
 to fix in partman-crypto. It is supposed to work for
 both loop-AES and dm-crypt.

  Max

 For dm-crypt, I get an error that says, You have chosen a random key
 type for SCSI2 (0,0,0), partition #6 (sdb) but requested the
 partitioner to create a file system on it.

 Using a random key type means that the partition data is going to be
 destroyed upon each reboot. This should only be used for swap
 partitions.

 Are you sure you want to use a random key?

 Loop-aes gives me the usual, The kernel was unable to re-read the
 partition table on /dev/loop0 (Invalid argument). This means Linux
 won't know anything about the modifications you made until you reboot.
 You should reboot your computer before doing anything with
 /dev/loop0.




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Bug#517471: ability to configure the random key encryption of tmp partitions during installaion

2009-02-28 Thread M. McGowan
  On 2/27/09, M. McGowan m.mcgowan...@googlemail.com wrote:
  package: debian-installer
  severity: wishlist
 version: 20090123

Sorry about the spelling error in the subject, installaion should be
installation.



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Bug#517563: After installing grub to /dev/sdb with root filesystem on /dev/sdb, grub attempts to load root filesystem from /dev/sda

2009-02-28 Thread M. McGowan
package: debian-installer
version: 20090123

After installing grub to /dev/sdb with root the filesystem on
/dev/sdb, grub attempts to load the root filesystem from /dev/sda.

Apparently, grub thinks whichever hard drive it is loading from is the
first hard drive, even if Linux thinks it is the second.

Workaround: Manually modify grub's menu.lst

There will be a line that says something like root (hd1,4). Change
the first number to zero, so that example should be changed to root
(hd0,4).



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Bug#517565: After new Debian installation, boot loader attempts to load root filesystem before usb hard drive has been found

2009-02-28 Thread M. McGowan
package: debian-installer
version: 20090123

After a new installation of Debian, the boot loader attempted to load
the root filesystem before the usb hard drive containing the root
filesystem had been found.

Workaround:
Manually edit grub's menu.lst. There is a line starting with kernel.
Add rootdelay=20 to the end of the line. A different number besides
20 may be used depending on how slow the usb hard drive is.

This problem was only noticed after solving the problem of grub trying
to load the root partition from the wrong drive.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=517563



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Bug#517471: ability to configure the random key encryption of tmp partitions during installaion

2009-02-27 Thread M. McGowan
package: debian-installer
severity: wishlist

It is possible to encrypt loop-aes and dm-crypt tmp (like /tmp or
/var/tmp) partitions with a random key at boot time, but the Debian
installer will not configure this. The installer will only configure
swap partitions like that.

Creating a random key at each boot is more secure than using the same
one, since then data will be securely deleted when the key is deleted,
which normally happens at shutdown. (For exceptions, read about cold
boot attacks.) Random keys also spare the user the trouble of having
to type a password at each boot and worrying about the security of the
key and the password.

A possible workaround is to configure the would-be tmp partitions as
swap partitions during the installation process, and manually
configure them to be tmp partitions after the first boot of the new
Debian system.


An fstab entry for a loop-aes encrypted swap partition, with a new
random key at each boot, looks like this.
/dev/sda6   noneswap
sw,loop=/dev/loop0,encryption=serpent256 0   0

An fstab entry for a loop-aes encrypted tmp partition, with a new
random key at each boot, looks like this.
/dev/sda7   /tmpext2
defaults,loop=/dev/loop1,encryption=serpent256,phash=random/1777 0
  0

More detailed documentation about loop-aes can be found in the losetup
manual page.


Similar functionality is available for dm-crypt.

A crypttab entry for a dm-crypt encrypted swap partition, with a new
random key at each boot, looks like this.
sda7_crypt /dev/sda6 /dev/random cipher=serpent-cbc-essiv:sha256,size=256,swap

Here is the fstab entry.
/dev/mapper/sda6_crypt none swapsw0   0

A crypttab entry for a dm-crypt encrypted tmp partition, with a new
random key at each boot, looks like this.
sda7_crypt /dev/sda7 /dev/random
cipher=serpent-cbc-essiv:sha256,size=256,tmp=ext2

Here is the fstab entry.
/dev/mapper/sda7_crypt /tmp ext2defaults0   0

More detailed information about dm-crypt can be found in the manual
pages cryptsetup and crypttab.


Personally, I prefer to use loop-aes for this application for the
following reasons:
* It has a multi-key mode in which it uses 64 keys plus an additional
65th key, which makes it more secure.
* It seems to be faster during boot time. Dm-crypt seems to take a
long time creating the ext2 partitions.
* dm-crypt might be more supported by Linux, but it is just a tmp
partition, so if a kernel upgrade breaks loop-aes, there will be no
data loss.



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Bug#517138: Difficulties after pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 to enter console after selecting a graphical install

2009-02-25 Thread M. McGowan
package: debian-installer
version: 20090123

When I select a graphical install, regular or expert, and press
Ctrl+Alt+F2, at first things appear fine. However, when I press
Ctrl+Alt+F1 to re-enter the graphical install, the graphical
installation is no longer visible, and instead there are lines of text
on a black background. If I had entered the console after completing
the first installation step, then I can press Ctrl+C, in which case
the present installation step will be aborted and I can start it
again.

However, if I had entered the console during the first installation
step, then after pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 and then Ctrl+C, the install
hangs with error messages interrupted by subliminal flashing of the
first installation step, and the system must be rebooted.

I have been able to reproduce these bugs.

I was trying to install Debian Lenny



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