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grub module: add extraInitrd option #22969

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merged 1 commit into from
Feb 20, 2017
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symphorien
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Motivation for this change

This adds a NixOS option which enables to configure grub to give the kernel a second ,additional initramfs.

My use case is the following:
I have a LUKS encrypted root filesystem, and no /boot partition. Grub asks me a passphrase to open /, read its configuration in /boot and then loads the kernel.
The initramfs then asks me the same passphrase a second time to mount /.
The solution is to create a LUKS keyfile, readable by root only, and put it in the initramfs so that stage1 doesn't need the passphrase anymore. But because of issue #8 one cannot but secret files in the store and thus in the initramfs.
So I have a second, static initramfs in /boot/custom_initramfs/initramfs.gz, readable by root only, and containing only the keyfile /key and the following setup:

boot.loader.grub = {
...
enableCryptodisk=true;
extraInitrd=/boot/custom_initramfs/initramfs.gz;
};  
boot.initrd.luks.devices = [ { 
...
keyFile="/key";
} ];

Things done
  • Tested using sandboxing
    (nix.useSandbox on NixOS,
    or option build-use-sandbox in nix.conf
    on non-NixOS)
  • Built on platform(s)
    • NixOS
    • macOS
    • Linux
  • Tested compilation of all pkgs that depend on this change using nix-shell -p nox --run "nox-review wip"
  • Tested execution of all binary files (usually in ./result/bin/)
  • Fits CONTRIBUTING.md.

Only tested on grub2, although the syntax should be the same with grub1.

@mention-bot
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@symphorien, thanks for your PR! By analyzing the history of the files in this pull request, we identified @edolstra, @wkennington and @obadz to be potential reviewers.

extraInitrd = mkOption {
type = types.nullOr types.path;
default = null;
example = /boot/extra_initrafms.gz;
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The example needs to be quoted, otherwise the evaluator will try to actually read it.

@symphorien
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Sorry, this is now fixed.

@fpletz
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fpletz commented Feb 19, 2017

Wow, awesome. Didn't know you could add a second initrd. What are the semantics here? Does the kernel just mount the second initrd over the first one are the contents copied? Seems a bit weird at first glance that the contents of both initrds are available at /.

@fpletz fpletz self-assigned this Feb 19, 2017
@fpletz fpletz added this to the 17.03 milestone Feb 19, 2017
@dezgeg
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dezgeg commented Feb 19, 2017

The contents are copied. The cpio format that's used for initrds cannot be mounted as it doesn't support efficient random access.

@fpletz
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fpletz commented Feb 19, 2017

Thanks for the explanation @dezgeg!

@fpletz fpletz merged commit 60555c7 into NixOS:master Feb 20, 2017
@lopsided98 lopsided98 mentioned this pull request Mar 31, 2018
8 tasks
@symphorien symphorien deleted the extrainitrd branch March 21, 2020 18:14
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5 participants