ELI passphrase on boot with USB keyboard

[Rolf G Nielsen]

Reid Linnemann wrote:
> Written by Reid Linnemann on 07/27/07 15:49>>
>> Written by Rolf G Nielsen on 07/27/07 15:21>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I recently purchased a new USB keyboard, since my old PS/2 one has 
>>> seen its best days. This has caused me annoying problems with my ELI 
>>> disks, though.
>>>
>>> I have four SATA harddrives, all of which are encrypted using ELI 
>>> encryption. I've encrypted the raw disks, ad0, ad1, ad2 and ad3. The 
>>> resulting devices ad0.eli, ad1.eli, ad2.eli and ad3.eli, I've 
>>> concatenated into a large device, cc0, on which I have several 
>>> partitions. To get this working, I of course need to boot from a 
>>> separate device, and for that I use an SD card, which holds a boot 
>>> directory. With my old PS/2 keyboard, this worked like a charm, but 
>>> it seems to me, the ukbd driver isnt activated until after the ELI 
>>> encryption, which means I'm unable to enter the passphrases for the 
>>> disks, thus I can't get the computer passed the first passphrase prompt.
>>>
>>> Currently I have both the old keyboard and the new USB one connected. 
>>> I use the PS/2 one to enter the passphrases, then I put it on the 
>>> floor under my desk and use the USB keyboard. As you may very well 
>>> understand, this is quite annoying. Is there a way to get the USB 
>>> keyboard to work at the point where I enter the passphrases?
>>>
>>> I've tried to change the keys for the disks to not use a passphrase, 
>>> but only keyfiles and load them from loader.conf, just as described 
>>> in the GELI man page (yes I did set the -P option), but that simply 
>>> will not work (and to be honest, it's not a solution I'd favour); if 
>>> I set the -b option (ask for passphrase on boot), it still asks for 
>>> the passphrase, though there is none, and if I set the -B option 
>>> (don't ask for passphrase on boot), the computer ends up at the 
>>> "mountroot>" prompt.
>>>
>>> I'd appreciate any help.
>>>
>>> Sincerly,
>>>
>>> Rolf Nielsen
>>>
>>
>> Try setting hints.atkbd0.disabled to 1 in the loader, or in the 
>> device.hints file. Your usb keyboard may work in early stages with 
>> that device hint.
> 
> Erm, set the hint in the loader _first_, and then only put it in 
> device.hints if it works!
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> 
Thanks. I'll try it next time I reboot (which will be a while). I'm not 
sure it'll work, though; I've tried a kernel without the atkbd and 
atkbdc devices compiled in.

-- 

Vänligen / Sincerly,
Rolf Nielsen

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