NAME¶

mandos-keygen - Generate key and password for Mandos client and server.

SYNOPSIS¶

DESCRIPTION¶

mandos-keygen is a program to generate the OpenPGP key used by mandos-client(8mandos). The key is normally written to /etc/mandos for later installation into the initrd image, but this, and most other things, can be changed with command line options. This program can also be used with the --password or --passfile options to generate a ready-made section for clients.conf (see mandos-clients.conf(5)).

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¶

--help, -h --dir DIRECTORY, -d DIRECTORY --type TYPE, -t TYPE --length BITS, -l BITS --subtype KEYTYPE, -s KEYTYPE --sublength BITS, -L BITS --email ADDRESS, -e ADDRESS --comment TEXT, -c TEXT --expire TIME, -x TIME --force, -f --password, -p --passfile FILE, -F FILE

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 an OpenPGP 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 the same OpenPGP key, and the password is then used to unlock the root file system, whereupon the computers can continue booting normally. This program is a small utility to generate new OpenPGP keys for new Mandos clients, and to generate sections for inclusion in clients.conf on the server.

EXIT STATUS¶

The exit status will be 0 if a new key (or password, if the --password option was used) was successfully created, otherwise not.

ENVIRONMENT¶

TMPDIR

FILES¶

Use the --dir option to change where mandos-keygen will write the key files. The default file names are shown here. /etc/mandos/seckey.txt /etc/mandos/pubkey.txt /tmp

EXAMPLE¶

Normal invocation needs no options: mandos-keygen Create key in another directory and of another type. Force overwriting old key files: mandos-keygen --dir ~/keydir --type RSA --force Prompt for a password, encrypt it with the key in /etc/mandos and output a section suitable for clients.conf. mandos-keygen --password Prompt for a password, encrypt it with the key in the client-key directory and output a section suitable for clients.conf. mandos-keygen --password --dir client-key

SECURITY¶

The --type, --length, --subtype, and --sublength options can be used to create keys of low security. If in doubt, leave them to the default values. The key expire time is not guaranteed to be honored by mandos(8).

SEE ALSO¶

intro(8mandos), gpg(1), mandos-clients.conf(5), mandos(8), mandos-client(8mandos)

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright © 2008-2009, 2011-2012 Teddy Hogeborn, Björn Påhlsson This manual page 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. This manual page 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 this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.