A configfs /sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys is provided for user
space to make the dm crypt keys persist for the kdump kernel. Take the
case of dumping to a LUKS-encrypted target as an example, here is the life
cycle of the kdump copies of LUKS volume keys,
1. After the 1st kernel loads the initramfs during boot, systemd uses
an user-input passphrase to de-crypt the LUKS volume keys or simply
TPM-sealed volume keys and then save the volume keys to specified
keyring (using the --link-vk-to-keyring API) and the keys will expire
within specified time.
2. A user space tool (kdump initramfs loader like kdump-utils) create
key items inside /sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys to inform
the 1st kernel which keys are needed.
3. When the kdump initramfs is loaded by the kexec_file_load
syscall, the 1st kernel will iterate created key items, save the
keys to kdump reserved memory.
4. When the 1st kernel crashes and the kdump initramfs is booted, the
kdump initramfs asks the kdump kernel to create a user key using the
key stored in kdump reserved memory by writing yes to
/sys/kernel/crash_dm_crypt_keys/restore. Then the LUKS encrypted
device is unlocked with libcryptsetup's --volume-key-keyring API.
5. The system gets rebooted to the 1st kernel after dumping vmcore to
the LUKS encrypted device is finished
Eventually the keys have to stay in the kdump reserved memory for the
kdump kernel to unlock encrypted volumes. During this process, some
measures like letting the keys expire within specified time are desirable
to reduce security risk.
This patch assumes,
1) there are 128 LUKS devices at maximum to be unlocked thus
MAX_KEY_NUM=128.
2) a key description won't exceed 128 bytes thus KEY_DESC_MAX_LEN=128.
And here is a demo on how to interact with
/sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys,
# Add key #1
mkdir /sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys/7d26b7b4-e342-4d2d-b660-7426b0996720
# Add key #1's description
echo cryptsetup:7d26b7b4-e342-4d2d-b660-7426b0996720 > /sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys/description
# how many keys do we have now?
cat /sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys/count
1
# Add key# 2 in the same way
# how many keys do we have now?
cat /sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys/count
2
# the tree structure of /crash_dm_crypt_keys configfs
tree /sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys/
/sys/kernel/config/crash_dm_crypt_keys/
├── 7d26b7b4-e342-4d2d-b660-7426b0996720
│ └── description
├── count
├── fce2cd38-4d59-4317-8ce2-1fd24d52c46a
│ └── description
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20250502011246.99238-3-coxu@redhat.com
Signed-off-by: Coiby Xu <coxu@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Baoquan He <bhe@redhat.com>
Cc: "Daniel P. Berrange" <berrange@redhat.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>
Cc: Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com>
Cc: Jan Pazdziora <jpazdziora@redhat.com>
Cc: Liu Pingfan <kernelfans@gmail.com>
Cc: Milan Broz <gmazyland@gmail.com>
Cc: Ondrej Kozina <okozina@redhat.com>
Cc: Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
180cf31af7