linux-kernel - Re: Should we automatically generate a module signing key at all?

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Message-ID: <20150519175510.GB26822@thunk.org>
Date:	Tue, 19 May 2015 13:55:10 -0400
From:	Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>
To:	David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
Cc:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Michal Marek <mmarek@...e.cz>,
	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
	Abelardo Ricart III <aricart@...nix.com>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Sedat Dilek <sedat.dilek@...il.com>, keyrings@...ux-nfs.org,
	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>,
	LSM List <linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>
Subject: Re: Should we automatically generate a module signing key at all?

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 05:23:19PM +0100, David Howells wrote:
> Did you mean make it possible to only use external hardware for storing the
> key?  That wouldn't very convenient for building our kernels in our build farm
> - we have a lot of machines and all of them would have to be equiped with the
> key.  Besides, we *want* to discard the private key where possible as soon as
> possible because then we can't leak it and we can't be forced to disclose it.

Oh, so you are generating a one-time key for each kernel build, and
then dropping the public key into a cert which is then signed by some
trusted CA system?  (Which I presume *would* be done with the private
key stored in some trusted secured hardware --- i.e., YubiKey,
SmartCard, or some other tempest-shielded hardware designed for use by
CA's)?

						- Ted
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