Re: Encryption Support for GRUB

[Robert Millan]

On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 11:04:16AM -0500, W. Michael Petullo wrote:
> I am interested in seeing support for encrypted partitions added to GRUB.
> On the GRUB Wiki, encryption support is listed as a suggested project for
> Google's Summer of Code 2008. Did anyone pick up this project? If not, I
> would like to take a stab at it. Before I start looking closely at this, I
> have two questions:
> 
> 1.  How do I know exactly what subset of libc is available to me as a GRUB
> developer? Obviously, system calls would not be expected to work because
> the operating system has not yet been loaded, but I would expect libmath
> routines to be usable by GRUB. What about other libraries?
> 
> 2.  Does anyone have any tips on how this could be implemented? I have a
> lot of experience working with encrypted root filesystems, but this is my
> first shot at an encrypted boot filesystem. I would appreciate comments
> from seasoned GRUB developers as I delve into the project's code myself.

I think the first you should do is check the list archives.  IIRC there was
someone else already working on this (not sure if he's still active, though).

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."