Re: GNU Boot patches: update to GRUB 2.12 with various fixes

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2024 02:01:06 +0000
Leah Rowe <info@minifree.org> wrote:

> Hi Denis, Adrien,
Hi,

Thanks for the patches. Updating to GRUB 2.12 is indeed important. I've
started to test and review that patch. I'll get back to you when this
is done. As for the grub configuration patches, they are interesting too
so I'll start to review them after the grub update one.

As for the out of tree GRUB patches, we want to avoid as much as
possible having to use out of tree patches in general (unless the
patches are backports of things that are already upstream).

So we're more interested in contributions that reduce the number of out
of tree patches we depend on rather than increasing them:

- For the patches to support Argon 2, having Argon2 is very important as
  it fixes a very serious security issue[1], but fixing it only in
  distributions like GNU Boot, Libreboot, etc doesn't really make sense.

  For instance there are also people using GRUB with
  'GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y' in various ways (with free or nonfree BIOS
  or UEFI) so that also leaves these people vulnerable.

  And if we apply the Argon2 patches in GNU Boot, we still have an
  issue as it doesn't fix the problem for people that use
  GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y with SeaBIOS.

  So the way forward here is to upstream that patch in GRUB. There is
  also already a bug report about that upstream[2] in case that helps.

  In addition if the Argon 2 patch is upstreamed, it will be reviewed so
  there would be less probability to have memory safety issues in it
  (like buffer overflow etc). Since the GRUB crypto subsystem was
  reworked when merging support for detached keys, nowadays it should be
  faster to have patches reviewed and merged.

- As for the other GRUB patches (for keyboard related issues) it would
  also be a good idea to upstream them in GRUB for instance for people
  building GRUB outside of GNU Boot, Libreboot, etc. For the
  patch that supports half-broken keyboards, if it somehow enables not
  to trash laptops, upstreaming it would be very beneficial as many
  more laptops could continue to work and not just laptops using GNU
  Boot, Libreboot, etc.

References:
-----------
[1]Some states are able to decrypt LUKS volumes with passphrases of 20+
   characters (that probably have low entropy) and Argon2 protects
   way better against theses type of attacks when users use low
   quality passphrases. So nowadays it's advised to use Argon2 or
   Argon2i and 7 random words for the passphrase.
[2]https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?55093

Denis.

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