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Date:      Tue, 20 Oct 2015 10:21:32 +0100 (BST)
From:      Anton Shterenlikht <mexas@bris.ac.uk>
To:        mexas@bris.ac.uk, phk@phk.freebsd.dk
Cc:        freebsd-current@freebsd.org, rwmaillists@googlemail.com, yaneurabeya@gmail.com
Subject:   Re: Depreciate and remove gbde
Message-ID:  <201510200921.t9K9LWrD005535@mech-as222.men.bris.ac.uk>
In-Reply-To: <96318.1445331396@critter.freebsd.dk>

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>From phk@phk.freebsd.dk Tue Oct 20 10:08:55 2015
>
>>Am I correct that the papers are from 2003 and 2004
>>respectively. Has much changed in gbde since then?
>
>Nope.

One thing that puzzled me about the way gbde
is integrated with the FreeBSD boot sequence is
that it's not possible to boot without entering
the correct gbde pass phrase.
I assumed that if the correct pass phrase is not
entered the specified number of times, three by
default, the boot should proceed without attaching
the encrypted partition.
But at present, if the correct pass phrase 
is not entered, the system goes into a single
user mode, but exiting from it to a multi-user mode
again gets one to gbde pass phrase prompt.
So it's not possible to boot at all without
attaching the gbde encrypted partition. 
Perhaps this can be configured via some rc* options?

The reason is that even a laptop can have multiple
users, not all of whom need/should mount any or all
encrypted partitions.

And a wish - please describe "nuke" and "destroy"
options more explicitly. The man page is extremely
terse on this. Given the seriosness of the consequences -
loss of all data on encrypted partition(?) - would
be great to know exactly what would happen.
The man page says both options will invalidate the
masterkey. Does this mean that encrypted data
cannot be recovered?
This is my guess, based on reading your 2 papers.

Many thanks for gbde.

Anton



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