FreeBSD offers excellent online protections against unauthorized data access. File permissions and Mandatory Access Control (MAC) (see Chapter 16) help prevent unauthorized third-parties from accessing data while the operating system is active and the computer is powered up. However, the permissions enforced by the operating system are irrelevant if an attacker has physical access to a computer and can simply move the computer's hard drive to another system to copy and analyze the sensitive data.
Regardless of how an attacker may have come into possession of a hard drive or powered-down computer, both GEOM Based Disk Encryption (gbde) and geli cryptographic subsystems in FreeBSD are able to protect the data on the computer's file systems against even highly-motivated attackers with significant resources. Unlike cumbersome encryption methods that encrypt only individual files, gbde and geli transparently encrypt entire file systems. No cleartext ever touches the hard drive's platter.
Become root
Configuring gbde requires super-user privileges.
% su - Password:
Add gbde(4) Support to the Kernel Configuration File
Add the following line to the kernel configuration file:
options GEOM_BDE
Rebuild the kernel as described in Chapter 8.
Reboot into the new kernel.
An alternative to recompiling the kernel is to use kldload to load gbde(4):
# kldload geom_bde
The following example assumes that you are adding a new hard drive to your system that will hold a single encrypted partition. This partition will be mounted as /private. gbde can also be used to encrypt /home and /var/mail, but this requires more complex instructions which exceed the scope of this introduction.
Add the New Hard Drive
Install the new drive to the system as explained in Section 18.3. For the purposes of this example, a new hard drive partition has been added as /dev/ad4s1c. The /dev/ad0s1* devices represent existing standard FreeBSD partitions on the example system.
# ls /dev/ad* /dev/ad0 /dev/ad0s1b /dev/ad0s1e /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad0s1 /dev/ad0s1c /dev/ad0s1f /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad0s1a /dev/ad0s1d /dev/ad4
Create a Directory to Hold gbde Lock Files
# mkdir /etc/gbde
The gbde lock file contains information that gbde requires to access encrypted partitions. Without access to the lock file, gbde will not be able to decrypt the data contained in the encrypted partition without significant manual intervention which is not supported by the software. Each encrypted partition uses a separate lock file.
Initialize the gbde Partition
A gbde partition must be initialized before it can be used. This initialization needs to be performed only once:
# gbde init /dev/ad4s1c -i -L /etc/gbde/ad4s1c.lock
gbde(8) will open your editor, permitting you to set various configuration options in a template. For use with UFS1 or UFS2, set the sector_size to 2048:
$FreeBSD: src/sbin/gbde/template.txt,v 1.1 2002/10/20 11:16:13 phk Exp $ # # Sector size is the smallest unit of data which can be read or written. # Making it too small decreases performance and decreases available space. # Making it too large may prevent filesystems from working. 512 is the # minimum and always safe. For UFS, use the fragment size # sector_size = 2048 [...]
gbde(8) will ask you twice to type the passphrase that should be used to secure the data. The passphrase must be the same both times. gbde's ability to protect your data depends entirely on the quality of the passphrase that you choose. [1]
The gbde init command creates a lock file for your gbde partition that in this example is stored as /etc/gbde/ad4s1c.lock. gbde lock files must end in “.lock” in order to be correctly detected by the /etc/rc.d/gbde start up script.
Caution: gbde lock files must be backed up together with the contents of any encrypted partitions. While deleting a lock file alone cannot prevent a determined attacker from decrypting a gbde partition, without the lock file, the legitimate owner will be unable to access the data on the encrypted partition without a significant amount of work that is totally unsupported by gbde(8) and its designer.
Attach the Encrypted Partition to the Kernel
# gbde attach /dev/ad4s1c -l /etc/gbde/ad4s1c.lock
You will be asked to provide the passphrase that you selected during the initialization of the encrypted partition. The new encrypted device will show up in /dev as /dev/device_name.bde:
# ls /dev/ad* /dev/ad0 /dev/ad0s1b /dev/ad0s1e /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad0s1 /dev/ad0s1c /dev/ad0s1f /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad0s1a /dev/ad0s1d /dev/ad4 /dev/ad4s1c.bde
Create a File System on the Encrypted Device
Once the encrypted device has been attached to the kernel, you can create a file
system on the device. To create a file system on the encrypted device, use newfs(8). Since it is
much faster to initialize a new UFS2 file system than it is to initialize the old UFS1
file system, using newfs(8) with the
-O2 option is recommended.
# newfs -U -O2 /dev/ad4s1c.bde
Note: The newfs(8) command must be performed on an attached gbde partition which is identified by a *.bde extension to the device name.
Mount the Encrypted Partition
Create a mount point for the encrypted file system.
# mkdir /private
Mount the encrypted file system.
# mount /dev/ad4s1c.bde /private
Verify That the Encrypted File System is Available
The encrypted file system should now be visible to df(1) and be available for use.
% df -H Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a 1037M 72M 883M 8% / /devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev /dev/ad0s1f 8.1G 55K 7.5G 0% /home /dev/ad0s1e 1037M 1.1M 953M 0% /tmp /dev/ad0s1d 6.1G 1.9G 3.7G 35% /usr /dev/ad4s1c.bde 150G 4.1K 138G 0% /private
After each boot, any encrypted file systems must be re-attached to the kernel, checked for errors, and mounted, before the file systems can be used. The required commands must be executed as user root.
Attach the gbde Partition to the Kernel
# gbde attach /dev/ad4s1c -l /etc/gbde/ad4s1c.lock
You will be asked to provide the passphrase that you selected during initialization of the encrypted gbde partition.
Check the File System for Errors
Since encrypted file systems cannot yet be listed in /etc/fstab for automatic mounting, the file systems must be checked for errors by running fsck(8) manually before mounting.
# fsck -p -t ffs /dev/ad4s1c.bde
Mount the Encrypted File System
# mount /dev/ad4s1c.bde /private
The encrypted file system is now available for use.
It is possible to create a script to automatically attach, check, and mount an encrypted partition, but for security reasons the script should not contain the gbde(8) password. Instead, it is recommended that such scripts be run manually while providing the password via the console or ssh(1).
As an alternative, an rc.d script is provided. Arguments for this script can be passed via rc.conf(5), for example:
gbde_autoattach_all="YES" gbde_devices="ad4s1c" gbde_lockdir="/etc/gbde"
This will require that the gbde passphrase be entered at boot time. After typing the correct passphrase, the gbde encrypted partition will be mounted automatically. This can be very useful when using gbde on notebooks.
gbde(8) encrypts the sector payload using 128-bit AES in CBC mode. Each sector on the disk is encrypted with a different AES key. For more information on gbde's cryptographic design, including how the sector keys are derived from the user-supplied passphrase, see gbde(4).
sysinstall(8) is incompatible with gbde-encrypted devices. All *.bde devices must be detached from the kernel before starting sysinstall(8) or it will crash during its initial probing for devices. To detach the encrypted device used in our example, use the following command:
# gbde detach /dev/ad4s1c
Also note that, as vinum(4) does not use the geom(4) subsystem, you cannot use gbde with vinum volumes.
A new cryptographic GEOM class is available as of FreeBSD 6.0 - geli. It is currently being developed by Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pjd@FreeBSD.org>. The
geli utility is different to gbde; it
offers different features and uses a different scheme for doing cryptographic work.
The most important features of geli(8) are:
Utilizes the crypto(9) framework -- when cryptographic hardware is available, geli will use it automatically.
Supports multiple cryptographic algorithms (currently AES, Blowfish, and 3DES).
Allows the root partition to be encrypted. The passphrase used to access the encrypted root partition will be requested during the system boot.
Allows the use of two independent keys (e.g. a “key” and a “company key”).
geli is fast - performs simple sector-to-sector encryption.
Allows backup and restore of Master Keys. When a user has to destroy his keys, it will be possible to get access to the data again by restoring keys from the backup.
Allows to attach a disk with a random, one-time key -- useful for swap partitions and temporary file systems.
More geli features can be found in the geli(8) manual page.
The next steps will describe how to enable support for geli in the FreeBSD kernel and will explain how to create and use a geli encryption provider.
In order to use geli, you must be running FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE or later. Super-user privileges will be required since modifications to the kernel are necessary.
Adding geli Support to the Kernel
Add the following lines to the kernel configuration file:
options GEOM_ELI device crypto
Rebuild the kernel as described in Chapter 8.
Alternatively, the geli module can be loaded at boot time. Add the following line to the /boot/loader.conf:
geom_eli_load="YES"
geli(8) should now be supported by the kernel.
Generating the Master Key
The following example will describe how to generate a key file, which will be used as part of the Master Key for the encrypted provider mounted under /private. The key file will provide some random data used to encrypt the Master Key. The Master Key will be protected by a passphrase as well. Provider's sector size will be 4kB big. Furthermore, the discussion will describe how to attach the geli provider, create a file system on it, how to mount it, how to work with it, and finally how to detach it.
It is recommended to use a bigger sector size (like 4kB) for better performance.
The Master Key will be protected with a passphrase and the data source for key file will be /dev/random. The sector size of /dev/da2.eli, which we call provider, will be 4kB.
# dd if=/dev/random of=/root/da2.key bs=64 count=1 # geli init -s 4096 -K /root/da2.key /dev/da2 Enter new passphrase: Reenter new passphrase:
It is not mandatory that both a passphrase and a key file are used; either method of securing the Master Key can be used in isolation.
If key file is given as “-”, standard input will be used. This example shows how more than one key file can be used.
# cat keyfile1 keyfile2 keyfile3 | geli init -K - /dev/da2
Attaching the Provider with the generated Key
# geli attach -k /root/da2.key /dev/da2 Enter passphrase:
The new plaintext device will be named /dev/da2.eli.
# ls /dev/da2* /dev/da2 /dev/da2.eli
Creating the new File System
# dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/da2.eli bs=1m # newfs /dev/da2.eli # mount /dev/da2.eli /private
The encrypted file system should be visible to df(1) and be available for use now:
# df -H Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad0s1a 248M 89M 139M 38% / /devfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /dev /dev/ad0s1f 7.7G 2.3G 4.9G 32% /usr /dev/ad0s1d 989M 1.5M 909M 0% /tmp /dev/ad0s1e 3.9G 1.3G 2.3G 35% /var /dev/da2.eli 150G 4.1K 138G 0% /private
Unmounting and Detaching the Provider
Once the work on the encrypted partition is done, and the /private partition is no longer needed, it is prudent to consider unmounting and detaching the geli encrypted partition from the kernel.
# umount /private # geli detach da2.eli
More information about the use of geli(8) can be found in the manual page.
geli comes with a rc.d script which can be used to simplify the usage of geli. An example of configuring geli through rc.conf(5) follows:
geli_devices="da2" geli_da2_flags="-p -k /root/da2.key"
This will configure /dev/da2 as a geli provider of which the Master Key file is located in /root/da2.key, and geli will not use a
passphrase when attaching the provider (note that this can only be used if -P was given during the geli init phase).
The system will detach the geli provider from the kernel before
the system shuts down.
More information about configuring rc.d is provided in the rc.d section of the Handbook.
| [1] |
For tips on how to select a secure passphrase that is easy to remember, see the Diceware Passphrase website. |
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