I recently switched to Linux (Zorin OS) and I selected “use ZFS and encrypt” during installation. Now before I can log in it asks me “please unlock disk keystore-rpool” and I have to type in the encryption password it before I’m able to get to the login screen.
Is there a way to do this automatically like with Windows or MacOS? Zorin has biometric login which is nice but this defeats the purpose especially because the encryption password is long and tedious to type in.
Also might TPM have anything to do with this?
The idea is to use TPM to store the keys - if you boot into a modified OS, TPM won’t give you the same key so automatic unlock will fail. And protection against somebody just booting the original system and copying data off it is provided by the system login screen.
Voilà, automatic drive decryption with fingerprint unlock to log into the OS. That’s what Windows does anyway.
I see. I don’t know that the usual drive encryption you set up during Linux install works with that, but there are BitLocker-like programs for Linux that might.
I don’t suppose you know of a tutorial to get this set up? Google turned up nothing.
Although OPs scenario is if someone steals the tower, in which case it’s not a different TPM. Would only help if the drives were yanked, which honestly I’d probably do rather than try to take the whole tower.
If you boot the computer into the currently installed OS, you will be presented with a login screen and will have to enter the correct password to log in (kernel parameters are part of the checksums, so booting into single-user mode won’t help you, that counts as a modified OS). If you boot a different OS, you won’t get the key off the TPM.
It’s not clear to me that OP is using the TPM though. If they aren’t, then automatically unlocking defeats the entire purpose.
Yes, but they are asking how to set up FDE in the same way it works on Windows, where automatic unlocking works using TPM. They just don’t know the technical details.
Indeed. My work laptop running Ubuntu has a TPM and its use is enforced through the organization. For that machine, it does automatically unlock. But again, it requires using the TPM.