Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] dm-inlinecrypt: Add inline encryption support

[Geoff Back]

On 24/10/2024 03:52, Adrian Vovk wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2024 at 2:57 AM Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 11:03:50AM -0400, Adrian Vovk wrote:
>>> Sure, but then this way you're encrypting each partition twice. Once by the dm-crypt inside of the partition, and again by the dm-crypt that's under the partition table. This double encryption is ruinous for performance, so it's just not a feasible solution and thus people don't do this. Would be nice if we had the flexibility though.

As an encrypted-systems administrator, I would actively expect and
require that stacked encryption layers WOULD each encrypt.  If I have
set up full disk encryption, then as an administrator I expect that to
be obeyed without exception, regardless of whether some higher level
file system has done encryption already.

Anything that allows a higher level to bypass the full disk encryption
layer is, in my opinion, a bug and a serious security hole.

Regards,

Geoff.


>> Why do you assume the encryption would happen twice?
> I'm not assuming. That's the behavior of dm-crypt without passthrough.
> It just encrypts everything that moves through it. If I stack two
> layers of dm-crypt on top of each other my data is encrypted twice.
>
>>>> Because you are now bypassing encryption for certainl LBA ranges in
>>>> the file system based on hints/flags for something sitting way above
>>>> in the stack.
>>>>
>>> Well the data is still encrypted. It's just encrypted with a different key. If the attacker has a FDE dump of the disk, the data is still just as inaccessible to them.
>> No one knows that it actually is encryped.  The lower layer just knows
>> the skip encryption flag was set, but it has zero assurance data
>> actually was encrypted.
> I think it makes sense to require that the data is actually encrypted
> whenever the flag is set. Of course there's no way to enforce that
> programmatically, but code that sets the flag without making sure the
> data gets encrypted some other way wouldn't pass review.
>
> Alternatively, if I recall correctly it should be possible to just
> check if the bio has an attached encryption context. If it has one,
> then just pass-through. If it doesn't, then attach your own. No flag
> required this way, and dm-default-key would only add encryption iff
> the data isn't already encrypted.
>
> Would either of those solutions be acceptable?
>
> Best,
> Adrian
>