arsv
commented
5 years ago Non-functional keyboard most likely means missing kernel modules.
If the keyboard had worked, there is the problem of keyboard layout.
Just guessing here, FDE tooling from minibase is not meant for installation media. Initrd with passblk in it is expected to be host- and user-specific, generated during installation. At most, it may need something like loadkeys or loadkmap (which I'll probably have to write at some point) to load a single pre-defined keymap that the user chose earlier.
Installation media or any non-personalized live systems should use non-encrypted images.
Easy uses the ext4 and f2fs builtin per-folder encryption
I'm not sure what exactly is the problem there, but I think if it's not full-disk encryption, it probably shouldn't be in initrd. The purpose of initrd is to locate and mount rootfs. If rootfs itself is encrypted at block level, it cannot be mounted as is so initrd has to handle decryption. Pretty much any other case, initrd should mount rootfs right away and pass control over. Everything past that point should be handled from within rootfs.
bkauler
I also tested
sys-2-crypt,makeworked, wrotewhole.imgto a USB stick. At bootup, it asked for a passphrase, however, the keyboard was dead.This is on a PC with a UEFI-BIOS HP motherboard, all Intel chips. So I tried on an old Compaq Presario, same problem. USB keyboards is all I have, don't have a ps/2 keyboard.
If the keyboard had worked, there is the problem of keyboard layout. I have a US keyboard, but entering the password is going to be a problem for other keyboards, Maybe need to have a simple selector for querty, quertz, azerty, etc.
In EasyOS, I also have encryption, where a password is entered in the initrd. Easy first displays a list of layouts, and user types a number to select which one, and busybox
loadkmapis used.Easy uses the ext4 and f2fs builtin per-folder encryption, which gives better performance than whole-of-partition encryption. Unfortunately, to handle all scenarios, I had to include
mke2fs,e2fsck,tune2fsande4crypt, statically-linked, which are 378KB, 513KB, 358KB, and 62KB -- considerably bulking up the initrd.All of that is needed because Easy creates the second, working, partition, and needs the full mke2fs that has the "-O encrypt" option. Then e4crypt has to be run on the new folders that are to be encrypted. Easy can also boot where the working filesystem already exists, and needs tune2fs to turn on encryption capability in the ext4 f.s.
Anyway, the problem right now is the non-functioning keyboard.