NAME¶

password-agent - Run Mandos client as a systemd password agent.

SYNOPSIS¶

password-agent [--agent-directory=DIRECTORY]
[--helper-directory=DIRECTORY]
[--user=USERID]
[--group=GROUPID]
[--] [MANDOS_CLIENT [OPTIONS...]]

password-agent --test

password-agent {--help | -?}

password-agent --usage

password-agent {--version | -V}

DESCRIPTION¶

password-agent is a program which is meant to be a systemd(1) “Password Agent” (See Password Agents[1]). The aim of this program is therefore to acquire and then send a password to some other program which will use the password to unlock the encrypted root disk.

This program is not meant to be invoked directly, but can be in order to test it.

PURPOSE¶

The purpose of this is to enable remote and unattended rebooting of client host computer with an encrypted root file system. See the section called “OVERVIEW” for details.

OPTIONS¶

--agent-directory DIRECTORY

--helper-directory DIRECTORY

--user USERID

--group GROUPID

MANDOS_CLIENT

--help, -?

--test

--usage

--version, -V

OVERVIEW¶

This is part of the Mandos system for allowing computers to have encrypted root file systems and at the same time be capable of remote and/or unattended reboots. The computers run a small client program in the initial RAM disk environment which will communicate with a server over a network. All network communication is encrypted using TLS. The clients are identified by the server using a TLS key; each client has one unique to it. The server sends the clients an encrypted password. The encrypted password is decrypted by the clients using a separate OpenPGP key, and the password is then used to unlock the root file system, whereupon the computers can continue booting normally.

This program, password-agent, will run on the client side in the initial RAM disk environment, and is responsible for getting a password from the Mandos client program itself, and to send that password to whatever is currently asking for a password using the systemd Password Agents[1] mechanism.

To accomplish this, password-agent runs the mandos-client program (which is the actual client program communicating with the Mandos server) or, alternatively, any executable file specified as MANDOS_CLIENT, and, as soon as a password is acquired from the MANDOS_CLIENT program, sends that password (as per the Password Agents[1] specification) to all currently unanswered password questions.

This program should be started (normally as a systemd service, which in turn is normally started by a systemd.path(5) file) as a reaction to files named “ask.xxxx” appearing in the agent directory “/run/systemd/ask-password” (or the directory specified by --agent-directory).

EXIT STATUS¶

Exit status of this program is zero if no errors were encountered, and otherwise not.

ENVIRONMENT¶

This program does not use any environment variables itself, it only passes on its environment to MANDOS_CLIENT. Also, the --helper-directory option will affect the environment variable MANDOSPLUGINHELPERDIR for MANDOS_CLIENT.

FILES¶

/run/systemd/ask-password

/lib/mandos/plugin-helpers

BUGS¶

Please report bugs to the Mandos development mailing list: <mandos-dev@recompile.se> (subscription required). Note that this list is public. The developers can be reached privately at <mandos@recompile.se> (OpenPGP key fingerprint 153A 37F1 0BBA 0435 987F 2C4A 7223 2973 CA34 C2C4 for encrypted mail).

EXAMPLE¶

Normal invocation needs no options:

password-agent

Run an alternative MANDOS_CLIENT program::

password-agent /usr/local/sbin/alternate

Use alternative locations for the helper directory and the Mandos client, and add extra options suitable for running in the normal file system:

password-agent --helper-directory=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mandos/plugin-helpers -- /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mandos/plugins.d/mandos-client --pubkey=/etc/keys/mandos/pubkey.txt --seckey=/etc/keys/mandos/seckey.txt --tls-pubkey=/etc/keys/mandos/tls-pubkey.pem --tls-privkey=/etc/keys/mandos/tls-privkey.pem

Use the default location for mandos-client(8mandos), but add many options to it:

password-agent -- /lib/mandos/plugins.d/mandos-client --pubkey=/etc/mandos/keys/pubkey.txt --seckey=/etc/mandos/keys/seckey.txt --tls-pubkey=/etc/mandos/keys/tls-pubkey.pem --tls-privkey=/etc/mandos/keys/tls-privkey.pem

Only run the self-tests:

password-agent --test

SECURITY¶

This program will need to run as the root user in order to read the agent directory and the “ask.xxxx” files there, and will, when starting the Mandos client program, require the ability to set the “real” user and group ids to another user, by default user and group 65534, which are assumed to be non-privileged. This is done in order to match the expectations of mandos-client(8mandos), which assumes that its executable file is owned by the root user and also has the set-user-ID bit set (see execve(2)).

SEE ALSO¶

intro(8mandos), mandos-client(8mandos), systemd(1),

Password Agents[1]

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright © 2019-2020 Teddy Hogeborn, Björn Påhlsson

This manual page is part of Mandos.

Mandos is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Mandos is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Mandos. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

NOTES¶

1.

Password Agents