Roland Dowdeswell wrote:
On 1237840674 seconds since the Beginning of the UNIX epoch Jan Danielsson wrote:The cgd parameters could probably even be passed by the boot loader as kernel arguments. Then this could even work with a generic kernel, and be set up at install time.The cgd parameters contains a salt value. Is it possible to store such arguments in a file separated from the kernel? It doesn't seem feasible for the user to enter these values manually each boot.Also, you want to be able to deal with some of the potential complixity that can be expressed in the parameters file. One of the reasons that I specifically did not choose an on the disk format was so that the file could be extended to do such things as exec'ing external programs to fetch keys from a central key authority. Or talking to an arbitrary number of key servers, etc. Now, granted, you will not be able to have the boot blocks do most of the more interesting features that cgdconfig(8) can do because you lack, well, a kernel, but you do want to at least be able to accept multiple key generation blocks instead of just a single one.
Yes; I'd already given that some thought. My goal is to keep as much of cgdconfig's flexibility as possible. Although I don't immediately see any way to provide keys from different sources, I don't want to break the possibility to use N-factor keys, in case someone finds a way.
Hmm.. Thinking a little more about it, it's pretty trivial to get access to physically separated keys -- which the kernel could access early on. A trivial hardware hack using the serial port. One could keep one part of the key on the boot media (USB-stick, CD, or whatever), and the other on the dongle. 1) Send byte x to request key 2) dongle replies @ 9600 8n1. Well, first things first.
-- Kind regards, Jan Danielsson
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