HOWTO: BT4 Pre-Final USB Encryption

[ESC201]

Try this one.

On the keymap subject, I don't know what else to tell you except to check if you have a bios setting that turns on number lock at boot.

[johnchain]

Well, I used your initrd and I get the same issue. (The keyboard issue as usual, I'll just use a different password to accomodate). On the computer where the keyboard did work fine, the first password worked perfectly, but then once again, the second password prompt waited no more than 8 seconds before continuing to boot. It just bypassed it. (in fact, typing my password just showed up on the screen, so it's not even expecting one.

Not sure what log I should check (can't find casper.log...if it's even relevent), to see what the error is, because unlike at the last password, backtrack can continue booting without accessing the changes partition, so maybe it's an unrecognized UUID or something.

I'll update back when I have a different password..one that'll work on my laptop, because who knows, it could be a individual computer issue again (all three of the computers i've tested on have given different results haha).

[ESC201]

If I understand you correctly, your system is decrypting the filesystem.squashfs file and is able to boot; just not with changes? If so, that's half the battle.

The contents of casper.log should help us figure out what it's doing. If your system is booted I believe casper.log is located at /var/log/casper.log. If not, try "locate casper.log" to try to find it.

Also, just to make sure, can you post the initrd you are using? It can't hurt for me to take a look.

[johnchain]

Yep! that's right.

Casper.log does indeed point out the problem.

Right after where it says "Enter passphrase" and "command successful" (The first password)...it then asks again for a passphrase (the changes). And that's followed by a "Command Failed: Cannot access this device"

Here is my initrd.gz file. It could be that I'm not entering the UUID properly, but I believe I did it correctly. And that is the correct UUID, I'm sure. Because I'm not sure what else would prevent access to the changes partition.

I'm going to run the procedure through clean from start to finish with a password that'll work on both computers.

[ESC201]

I think we have it licked now, in your initrd, on the cryptsetup command (line 387 in the casper file) you have...

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/a9f300c7-7156-44a3-be48-560fb189c296 casper-rw >&6

It needs to be...

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/by-uuid/a9f300c7-7156-44a3-be48-560fb189c296 casper-rw >&6

That would be why your logs are telling you the device does not exist.

If you are starting over again, make sure you update the UUID in there.

[johnchain]

Gah...silly mistake!

Thanks for everything, works beautifully.

Startup is a little slower, but everything runs at a very manageable rate.

[ESC201]

It happens.

I'm glad to hear you got it working and it runs at a usable speed.
The extra start up time is part of the price you have to pay to have your data encrypted; it's worth it though.

[johnchain]

Too bad the encryption worked on my buddy's computer only...

I tried changing the passphrases to keys with no special attributes to them, still no luck. casper.log says that it's still the wrong password.

The keyboard works fine in the initramfs (I tried just typing in my password and all the characters showed up fine).

Really not sure what to do with this one. I know the 1520 Vostro is used to having keyboard issues with backtrack (at one point when using the encrypted liveUSB it wouldn't recognize any keystrokes at all). So I edited the boot parameters and it worked again, but still no luck when typing in passwords.

[ESC201]

So the encryption is working, just not on your laptop? I don't know what to tell you about that one. As I've said before, I know little to nothing about keymaps. Sorry.

[johnchain]

is there anything I can add to the initrd.gz that would for test purposes print out what I typed in?