linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Second attempt at kernel secure boot support

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Message-ID: <20121101131849.752df6fd@pyramind.ukuu.org.uk>
Date:	Thu, 1 Nov 2012 13:18:49 +0000
From:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To:	joeyli <jlee@...e.com>
Cc:	Takashi Iwai <tiwai@...e.de>,
	Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>,
	Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org, linux-efi@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Second attempt at kernel secure boot support

> I think it make sense because the private key is still protected by
> signer. Any hacker who modified firmware is still need use private key
> to generate signature, but hacker's private key is impossible to match
> with the public key that kernel used to verify firmware.
> 
> And, I afraid we have no choice that we need put the firmware signature
> in a separate file. Contacting with those company's legal department
> will be very time-consuming, and I am not sure all company will agree we
> put the signature with firmware then distribute.

Then you'd better stop storing it on disk because your disk drive is FEC
encoding it and adding a CRC 8)

It does want checking with a lawyer but my understanding is that if you
have a file which is a package that contains the firmware and a signature
then there is not generally a problem, any more than putting it in an RPM
file - it's packaging/aggregation. This should be referred to the Linux
Foundation folks perhaps - no point designing something badly to work
around a non existant issue.

Also the interface needs to consider that a lot of device firmware is
already signed. Nobody notices because they don't ever try and do their
own thus many drivers don't need extra signatures in fact.

Alan
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