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

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Date:	Wed, 20 May 2015 14:31:29 +0930
From:	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>
To:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
Cc:	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,
	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?

Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org> writes:
> On 05/18/2015 09:20 AM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:04 AM, David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Should we instead provide a script:
>>>
>>>          ./scripts/generate-key
>>>
>>> That generates a key if run and make it so that the build fails if you turn on
>>> module signing and there's no key.
>>
>> That would just be stupid.
>>
>> I'm not ever applying a patch like that. That would absolutely destroy
>> the sane "git clean + rebuild" model.
>>
>> Why the hell would you want to make the sane case that people actually
>> *use* be harder to use.
>>
>> Nobody sane bothers with long-term keys. They are inconvenient and less secure.
>>
>> Put the onus on making it inconvenient on those people who actually
>> have special keys, not on normal people.
>>
>
> I think we should get rid of the idea of automatically generated signing 
> keys entirely.  Instead I think we should generate, at build time, a 
> list of all the module hashes and link that into vmlinux.

Yep, suggested that long ago.  But people want signatures, because
the actual push for pubkeys was never the temp-pubkey model.

Cheers,
Rusty.
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