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Quick start

In this guide we show how to set up a key exchange daemon and client on a typical scenario where the keys are used to open a device encrypted with dm-crypt (the standard Linux disk encryption).

These steps have been checked on a Debian install, other distributions should be similar but may differ on some of the details (specially on the [Configuring crypttab] section).

Server setup

Install kxd on the server, via your distribution packages (e.g. apt install kxd), or directly from source.

Then, run create-kxd-config <hostname>, which will create the configuration directories, and generate a self-signed key/cert pair for the server (valid for 10 years).

For the hostname, use the name or IP that the clients will use to reach the server. You can use more than one, separated with commas.

Client setup

Install kxc on the client machine, via your distribution packages (e.g. apt install kxc), or directly from source.

Then, run kxc-add-key server sda2, which will create the configuration directories, generate the client key/cert pair (valid for 10 years), and also create an entry for an client/sda2 key to be fetched from the server. Everything is in /etc/kxc/.

Finally, copy the server public certificate over, using scp server:/etc/kxd/cert.pem /etc/kxc/sda2.server_cert.pem (or something equivalent).

Adding the key to the server

On the server, run kxd-add-client-key client sda2 to generate the basic configuration for that client's key, including the key itself (generated randomly).

Then, copy the client public certificate over, using scp client:/etc/kxc/cert.pem /etc/kxd/data/client/sda2/allowed_clients (or something equivalent).

That allows the client to fetch the key.

Updating the drive's key

On the client, run kxc-cryptsetup sda2 | wc -c to double-check that the output length is as expected (you could also compare it by running sha256 or something equivalent).

Assuming that goes well, all you need is to add that key to your drives' key ring so it can be decrypted with it:

# Note we copy to /dev/shm which should not be written to disk.
kxc-cryptsetup sda2 > /dev/shm/key

cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/sda2 /dev/shm/key

rm /dev/shm/key

Note this adds a new key, but your existing ones are still valid. Always have more than one key, so if something goes wrong with kxd, you can still unlock the drive manually.

Configuring crypttab

In order to get kxc to be run automatically to fetch the key, we need to edit /etc/crypttab and tell it to use a keyscript:

sda2_crypt UUID=blah-blah-blah sda2 luks,keyscript=/usr/bin/kxc-cryptsetup
                               ^^^^      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Note the sda2 field corresponds to the name we've been passing around in previous sections. The keyscript=/usr/bin/kxc-cryptsetup option is our way of telling the cryptsetup infrastructure to use our script to fetch the key for this target.

You can test that this works by using:

cryptdisks_stop sda2_crypt
cryptdisks_start sda2_crypt

The second command should issue a request to your server to get the key.

Consider running update-initramfs -u if your device is the root device, or it is needed very early in the boot process.