Inconsistent keyboard layout affecting encrypted root

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8 participants

Chris Marusich
Ludovic Courtès
Christopher Baines
Mathieu Lirzin
nee
nee
ng0
Taylan Kammer

Owner: unassigned

Submitted by: Christopher Baines

Severity: important

Christopher Baines wrote on 15 Jan 2017 07:55

Recipients:(address . bug-guix@gnu.org)

Message-ID:87wpdwzuar.fsf@cbaines.net

I'm using a UK keyboard layout with a computer that I recently installed
GuixSD on with a encrypted root parition. Immediately after installation
when I attempted to boot in to the new system for the first time I had
to enter the passphrase twice, and in doing this, first I had to use the
keyboard layout under which I carried out the installation (the layout
which I had intended to use), and then during the early boot stage of
the system I had to enter the passphrase using a different keyboard
layout.

The ideal behaviour here is that the way in which the passphrase is set
in the installer is the way in which it has to be entered into Grub and
during the early boot of the system.

Ludovic Courtès wrote on 20 Jan 2017 15:01

Recipients:(name . Christopher Baines)(address . mail@cbaines.net)(address . 25453@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87vat9akzj.fsf@gnu.org

Hi!

Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> skribis:

Toggle quote (9 lines)

> I'm using a UK keyboard layout with a computer that I recently installed

> GuixSD on with a encrypted root parition. Immediately after installation

> when I attempted to boot in to the new system for the first time I had

> to enter the passphrase twice, and in doing this, first I had to use the

> keyboard layout under which I carried out the installation (the layout

> which I had intended to use), and then during the early boot stage of

> the system I had to enter the passphrase using a different keyboard

> layout.

Currently installing a keymap is something done by the ‘console-keymap’

Shepherd service, which invokes ‘loadkeys’. That happens after

“cryptsetup --open” has opened your encrypted root device, hence the

problem.

Should we install the keymap right in the initrd, before we’ve mounted

the root partition? That would require copying the right keymap(s) and

probably ‘loadkeys’ to the initrd, which might make it quite big.

Suggestions? How do others handle it?

Thanks for your report,

Ludo’.

Mathieu Lirzin wrote on 14 Jan 2018 14:22

Recipients:(name . Ludovic Courtès)(address . ludo@gnu.org)

Message-ID:87efmswp6u.fsf@gnu.org

Hello,

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

Toggle quote (16 lines)> Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> skribis:
>
>> I'm using a UK keyboard layout with a computer that I recently installed
>> GuixSD on with a encrypted root parition. Immediately after installation
>> when I attempted to boot in to the new system for the first time I had
>> to enter the passphrase twice, and in doing this, first I had to use the
>> keyboard layout under which I carried out the installation (the layout
>> which I had intended to use), and then during the early boot stage of
>> the system I had to enter the passphrase using a different keyboard
>> layout.
>
> Currently installing a keymap is something done by the ‘console-keymap’
> Shepherd service, which invokes ‘loadkeys’.  That happens after
> “cryptsetup --open” has opened your encrypted root device, hence the
> problem.

I am using '(console-keymap-service "fr")' in my system config, so I

would expect to have at least an AZERTY keyboard layout for the second

passphrase entered but I am not. Am I overlooking something?

Thanks.

Mathieu Lirzin

GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761 070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37

Chris Marusich wrote on 17 Jan 2018 08:05

Recipients:(name . Ludovic Courtès)(address . ludo@gnu.org)

Message-ID:87vag1j77b.fsf@gmail.com

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

Toggle quote (27 lines)> Hi!
>
> Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> skribis:
>
>> I'm using a UK keyboard layout with a computer that I recently installed
>> GuixSD on with a encrypted root parition. Immediately after installation
>> when I attempted to boot in to the new system for the first time I had
>> to enter the passphrase twice, and in doing this, first I had to use the
>> keyboard layout under which I carried out the installation (the layout
>> which I had intended to use), and then during the early boot stage of
>> the system I had to enter the passphrase using a different keyboard
>> layout.
>
> Currently installing a keymap is something done by the ‘console-keymap’
> Shepherd service, which invokes ‘loadkeys’.  That happens after
> “cryptsetup --open” has opened your encrypted root device, hence the
> problem.
>
> Should we install the keymap right in the initrd, before we’ve mounted
> the root partition?  That would require copying the right keymap(s) and
> probably ‘loadkeys’ to the initrd, which might make it quite big.
>
> Suggestions?  How do others handle it?
>
> Thanks for your report,
> Ludo’.

I may be wrong, but keep in mind that Grub and other bootloaders might

require their own configuration to set the keyboard layout, also.

Chris

ng0 wrote on 17 Jan 2018 09:29

Recipients:(name . Ludovic Courtès)(address . ludo@gnu.org)

Message-ID:20180117082920.fiyi672klgu3cg3q@abyayala

Ludovic Courtès transcribed 1.1K bytes:

Toggle quote (24 lines)> Hi!
> 
> Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> skribis:
> 
> > I'm using a UK keyboard layout with a computer that I recently installed
> > GuixSD on with a encrypted root parition. Immediately after installation
> > when I attempted to boot in to the new system for the first time I had
> > to enter the passphrase twice, and in doing this, first I had to use the
> > keyboard layout under which I carried out the installation (the layout
> > which I had intended to use), and then during the early boot stage of
> > the system I had to enter the passphrase using a different keyboard
> > layout.
> 
> Currently installing a keymap is something done by the ‘console-keymap’
> Shepherd service, which invokes ‘loadkeys’.  That happens after
> “cryptsetup --open” has opened your encrypted root device, hence the
> problem.
> 
> Should we install the keymap right in the initrd, before we’ve mounted
> the root partition?  That would require copying the right keymap(s) and
> probably ‘loadkeys’ to the initrd, which might make it quite big.
> 
> Suggestions?  How do others handle it?

Yes, this has been annoying me to the point of simply taking it for

granted for now, and replacing it in my own set of defaults.

To answer your question: Others handle it in the initrd aswell.

For example in Gentoo with OpenRC, you set the keyboardlayout for

the initrd. In Archlinux iirc before and after adoption of systemd

you set the keymap for it. In Debian if memory serves me right you

set the keyboard layout. I think I don't need to go on...

What's the size difference for the initrd then in numbers?

I don't think we have to wory about size as we'll never run

on devices smaller than router devices (at least that's my

current assumption looking at the size of a typical minimal

GuixSD, it's possible but requires lots of customization).

Toggle quote (6 lines)

> Thanks for your report,

> Ludo’.

-- 
ng0 :: https://ea.n0.is
A88C8ADD129828D7EAC02E52E22F9BBFEE348588 :: https://ea.n0.is/keys/

Ludovic Courtès wrote on 13 Jan 2019 22:36

Keyboard layout configuration

Recipients:(address . guix-devel@gnu.org)(address . 25453@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87won81bqi.fsf_-_@gnu.org

Hello Joshua,

Thanks a lot for working on this! I’d really like 1.0 to provide a

reasonable way to configure the keyboard layout once and for all.

I suggest we continue the discussion in the context of

https://issues.guix.info/issue/25453.

Joshua Branson <jbranso@dismail.de> skribis:

Toggle quote (12 lines)> I believe I have identified conceptually how to do some of these things.
>
> This project breaks down into four areas
>
> Getting the layout to work with:
>
> 1) grub
> 2) linux's initrd
> 3) console
> 4) X/wayland's layout
> 5) How to do the above

There’s also the question of how to “translate” keyboard layouts among
all of these.  Debian has a mechanism whereby you specify the layout in
a single place, and it then does the right thing for GRUB, Linux, X, and
so on.  I forgot how it works, but we should aim for something like
that.

Toggle quote (12 lines)> 1)  I was not able to get grub to generate an alternate keyboard layout.
>
> #+BEGIN_SRC sh :results output :exports both
> sudo grub-kbdcomp -o /boot/grub/dvorak.gkb dvorak
> #+END_SRC
>
> #+RESULTS:
> : /home/joshua/.guix-profile/bin/grub-kbdcomp: line 76: ckbcomp: command not found
> : ERROR: no valid keyboard layout found. Check the input.
>
> Do we have ckbcomp installed?  How do I install that?

I searched on packages.debian.org, and it’s in ‘console-setup’, which

happens to be the thing I was mentioning above: :-)

https://packages.debian.org/stretch/console-setup

It looks like Debian is actually upstream for this package, but it may

be usable on non-Debian systems as well.

Toggle quote (2 lines)

> 2) Linux's initrd

We’d probably need to invoke ‘loadkeys’ or similar from the initrd, and

to embed only the specific layout files that we need. See (gnu system

linux-initrd).

Toggle quote (4 lines)

> 3) console

> This shouldn't be all that hard to do. We just have to add a

> console-keymap-service.

Yes, #2 and #3 are actually the same thing (and redundant), except that

in #2 we have to be careful not to embed too much in the initrd.

Toggle quote (4 lines)

> 4) X/Wayland's layout shouldn't be all that hard to do too. X is just

> a simple xorg-start-command tweak. I'm not certain how to do the same

> for wayland yet.

OK.

Toggle quote (8 lines)

> 5) Now, how do I go about doing the above? I thought about modifying

> %base-services and %desktop services, but some users won't use those

> variables. So I am going to have to do some change at a deeper level.

> I believe that I found the reconfigure module in the guix source code,

> and I see the variable called "operating-system-user-services". My

> intent is to modify this variable, and that should be how a good-old

> reconfigure will change your layout.

I think we’ll have to use ‘console-setup’.

The difficulty is that we want a single ‘keyboard-layout’ field (say) in

the OS config that would have an effect on GRUB, the Linux console,

Xorg, and Wayland, *if* they are used (setting the keyboard layout

shouldn’t require you to use Xorg, for instance.)

So I think we cannot use the standard Guix-y static approach where

services are instantiated directly with the right configuration.

Instead, Xorg & co. may need to look for a config file at a fixed

location, say /etc/guix/keyboard-layout.conf, pretty much the same way

it’s done on Debian & co.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.

nee wrote on 13 Jan 2019 23:49

Recipients:(address . guix-devel@gnu.org)(address . 25453@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:6ac13233-d351-6ce5-09a2-4eb91750364f@cock.li

Am 13.01.19 um 22:36 schrieb Ludovic Courtès:

Toggle quote (7 lines)

>> 1) grub

>> 2) linux's initrd

>> 3) console

>> 4) X/wayland's layout

>> 5) How to do the above

Hello, I was working on this recently and made a patch for X11 that
fixes the layout in the slim login and when you login into gnome3 or
whatever desktop environment.

I also made a patch for grub that fixes the layout when you edit the
boot command for a menu entry, but not for the luks prompt. I think that
might require installing a custom grub image (grub-mkimage) with
grub-bios-setup instead of using grub-install (I saw some posts on the
archlinux forum I don't have a link to right now). But this patch should
lay the groundwork for it, as it can generate grub keyboard config files.

The patches are pretty dirty, but I might not have that much time in the
next few weeks to work on this, and since is hot on the mailing list
right now, I'm sending them here now.

Happy hacking!

Attachment: 0001-bootloader-grub-custom-keyboard-layout.patch

Attachment: file

Ludovic Courtès wrote on 15 Jan 2019 23:21

Recipients:(name . nee)(address . nee@cock.li)

Message-ID:874la9y323.fsf@gnu.org

Hello nee!

nee <nee@cock.li> skribis:

Toggle quote (23 lines)> Am 13.01.19 um 22:36 schrieb Ludovic Courtès:
>>> 1) grub
>>> 2) linux's initrd
>>> 3) console
>>> 4) X/wayland's layout
>>> 5) How to do the above
>> 
>
> Hello, I was working on this recently and made a patch for X11 that
> fixes the layout in the slim login and when you login into gnome3 or
> whatever desktop environment.
>
> I also made a patch for grub that fixes the layout when you edit the
> boot command for a menu entry, but not for the luks prompt. I think that
> might require installing a custom grub image (grub-mkimage) with
> grub-bios-setup instead of using grub-install (I saw some posts on the
> archlinux forum I don't have a link to right now). But this patch should
> lay the groundwork for it, as it can generate grub keyboard config files.
>
> The patches are pretty dirty, but I might not have that much time in the
> next few weeks to work on this, and since is hot on the mailing list
> right now, I'm sending them here now.

Nice, you did well!

I’ve already pushed “bdfresize” and “console-setup” partly based on your

patches:

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=fe77ede70ad292c8fcba80f34b356fecd86f7f78

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=41a54622b691b68e342a0c7de23fec8de14cb739

The GRUB and Xorg parts look overall like the right thing to me—I’ll

take some time to review more closely soon.

Then we’ll also need to think about extending the bootloader API (not

GRUB-specific), and then providing a way to specify the layout globally

in a single place.

Anyway, thanks a lot for helping out!

Ludo’.

Ludovic Courtès wrote on 16 Jan 2019 14:10

Recipients:(name . nee)(address . nee@cock.li)

Message-ID:87a7k0vjcw.fsf@gnu.org

nee <nee@cock.li> skribis:

Toggle quote (31 lines)> --- a/gnu/packages/bootloaders.scm
> +++ b/gnu/packages/bootloaders.scm
> @@ -55,6 +55,7 @@
>    #:use-module (gnu packages swig)
>    #:use-module (gnu packages valgrind)
>    #:use-module (gnu packages virtualization)
> +  #:use-module (gnu packages xorg)
>    #:use-module (gnu packages web)
>    #:use-module (guix build-system gnu)
>    #:use-module (guix download)
> @@ -110,6 +111,12 @@
>                       ;; Make the font visible.
>                       (copy-file (assoc-ref inputs "unifont") "unifont.bdf.gz")
>                       (system* "gunzip" "unifont.bdf.gz")
> +
> +                     ;; patch the path to ckbcomp
> +                     (substitute* "util/grub-kbdcomp.in"
> +                       (("^ckbcomp ")
> +                        (string-append (assoc-ref inputs "console-setup")
> +                                       "/bin/ckbcomp ")))
>                       #t))
>                    (add-before 'check 'disable-flaky-test
>                      (lambda _
> @@ -134,6 +141,10 @@
>         ;; to determine whether the root file system is RAID.
>         ("mdadm" ,mdadm)
>  
> +       ;; console-setup's ckbcomp is invoked by grub-kbdcomp
> +       ;; it is required for generating alternative keyboard layouts
> +       ("console-setup" ,console-setup)

I pushed this bit on your behalf as commit

ab100b905f4073b24d69af3de6de61c4c55ce27d.

It’s a bit sad that the closure of ‘grub-efi’ goes from 162�MiB to

223�MiB because of Perl, which is used to run this tiny ‘ckbcomp’

program. At some point we should consider translating it to Scheme,

especially since it’s essentially data.

Thanks,

Ludo’.

Taylan Kammer wrote on 12 Mar 2019 20:34

Re: bug#25453: Keyboard layout configuration

Recipients:(name . nee)(address . nee@cock.li)

Message-ID:871s3blweg.fsf@gmail.com

nee <nee@cock.li> wrote:

Toggle quote (23 lines)> Am 13.01.19 um 22:36 schrieb Ludovic Courtès:
>>> 1) grub
>>> 2) linux's initrd
>>> 3) console
>>> 4) X/wayland's layout
>>> 5) How to do the above
>> 
>
> Hello, I was working on this recently and made a patch for X11 that
> fixes the layout in the slim login and when you login into gnome3 or
> whatever desktop environment.
>
> I also made a patch for grub that fixes the layout when you edit the
> boot command for a menu entry, but not for the luks prompt. I think that
> might require installing a custom grub image (grub-mkimage) with
> grub-bios-setup instead of using grub-install (I saw some posts on the
> archlinux forum I don't have a link to right now). But this patch should
> lay the groundwork for it, as it can generate grub keyboard config files.
>
> The patches are pretty dirty, but I might not have that much time in the
> next few weeks to work on this, and since is hot on the mailing list
> right now, I'm sending them here now.

Heya, just wanted to give my personal thanks for working on this. :-) As
a user of an unusual keyboard layout (Colemak), this is one of my main
pet annoyances with Guix.


And by the way, an unpleasent off-topic issue:

After getting curious and visiting the homepage of your email domain
'cock.li' I was at first amused to see Chen from Touhou, but then pretty
sad to see a frivolous use of racist and sexist slurs and what I guess
is supposed to be "humorously meant hate speech" (thinking of the domain
name "nuke.africa" for instance).  I understand that this is probably
supposed to be a kind of childish black humor (I spent a lot of time on
4chan back in my time) but let's not forget that we're not, in fact,
children anymore, and that stuff like this can be quite seriously
upsetting to some people.  Imagine that we have, say, a middle-aged
African computer scientist in our community, who isn't familiar with
such "humor", or a young female college student with a background in a
conservative family with rigid gender roles, and consider how they might
feel after seeing domain names like "getbackinthe.kitchen", "nigge.rs",
and the like.  I'd urge you to use another address for correspondence
with an open community like this one, given that anyone could get
curious like me and visit the homepage of your domain.

- Taylan

nee wrote on 15 Mar 2019 19:19

Recipients:(name . Taylan Kammer)(address . taylan.kammer@gmail.com)

Message-ID:eb8ace5c-9efb-da7a-7ae1-b02c98cba31f@hidamari.blue

Toggle quote (2 lines)

> And by the way, an unpleasent off-topic issue:

Hello, thank you for your considerate message. I'm using the my own

domain for email in the future.

Happy hacking!

Ludovic Courtès wrote on 17 Mar 2019 14:41

control message for bug #25453

Recipients:(address . control@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:877ecxzkhe.fsf@gnu.org

severity 25453 important

Ludovic Courtès wrote on 21 Mar 2019 00:07

Re: bug#25453: Keyboard layout configuration

Recipients:(name . nee)(address . nee@cock.li)

Message-ID:87wokt9mcj.fsf@gnu.org

Hello nee,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> skribis:

Toggle quote (9 lines)

> I’ve already pushed “bdfresize” and “console-setup” partly based on your

> patches:

> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=fe77ede70ad292c8fcba80f34b356fecd86f7f78

> https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=41a54622b691b68e342a0c7de23fec8de14cb739

> The GRUB and Xorg parts look overall like the right thing to me—I’ll

> take some time to review more closely soon.

Inspired by your other patches I’ve posted this series:

https://issues.guix.info/issue/34929

Ludo’.

Taylan Kammer wrote on 21 Mar 2019 23:23

Recipients:(name . nee)(address . nee-git@hidamari.blue)

Message-ID:87bm23n9yy.fsf@gmail.com

nee <nee-git@hidamari.blue> writes:

Toggle quote (7 lines)

>> And by the way, an unpleasent off-topic issue:

> Hello, thank you for your considerate message. I'm using the my own

> domain for email in the future.

> Happy hacking!

Thank you for being understanding, happy hacking! :-)

- Taylan

Ludovic Courtès wrote on 24 Mar 2019 23:21

Re: bug#25453: Inconsistent keyboard layout affecting encrypted root

Recipients:(name . Christopher Baines)(address . mail@cbaines.net)(address . 25453-done@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87k1gnsyll.fsf@gnu.org

Hi Chris!

ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:

Toggle quote (16 lines)> Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> skribis:
>
>> I'm using a UK keyboard layout with a computer that I recently installed
>> GuixSD on with a encrypted root parition. Immediately after installation
>> when I attempted to boot in to the new system for the first time I had
>> to enter the passphrase twice, and in doing this, first I had to use the
>> keyboard layout under which I carried out the installation (the layout
>> which I had intended to use), and then during the early boot stage of
>> the system I had to enter the passphrase using a different keyboard
>> layout.
>
> Currently installing a keymap is something done by the ‘console-keymap’
> Shepherd service, which invokes ‘loadkeys’.  That happens after
> “cryptsetup --open” has opened your encrypted root device, hence the
> problem.

This is finally fixed by commit

ae7a316b9da0d1a50c5abdc531c68c8e98e561c9, which initializes the console

keyboard layout straight from the initrd.

Ludo’.

Closed

Christopher Baines wrote on 25 Mar 2019 06:44

Recipients:(name . Ludovic Courtès)(address . ludo@gnu.org)(address . 25453-done@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:874l7rcxts.fsf@cbaines.net

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

Toggle quote (24 lines)> Hi Chris!
>
> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:
>
>> Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> skribis:
>>
>>> I'm using a UK keyboard layout with a computer that I recently installed
>>> GuixSD on with a encrypted root parition. Immediately after installation
>>> when I attempted to boot in to the new system for the first time I had
>>> to enter the passphrase twice, and in doing this, first I had to use the
>>> keyboard layout under which I carried out the installation (the layout
>>> which I had intended to use), and then during the early boot stage of
>>> the system I had to enter the passphrase using a different keyboard
>>> layout.
>>
>> Currently installing a keymap is something done by the ‘console-keymap’
>> Shepherd service, which invokes ‘loadkeys’.  That happens after
>> “cryptsetup --open” has opened your encrypted root device, hence the
>> problem.
>
> This is finally fixed by commit
> ae7a316b9da0d1a50c5abdc531c68c8e98e561c9, which initializes the console
> keyboard layout straight from the initrd.

Exciting, thanks Ludo :)

Closed

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