Hi! I want to try out fedora workstation in the near future (once 39 is out) and was wondering if systemd-homed is ready for everyday use yet.
I’m a bit paranoid and really need my private data encrypted. However, I don’t think that full disk encryption is practical for my daily use. Therefore I was really looking forward to the encryption possibilities of systemd-homed.
However, after reading up on it, I was a bit discouraged. AFAIK, there’s no option to setup systemd-homed at installation (of fedora). I was an Arch then Manjaro, then Endeavour user for years but don’t have the time/patience anymore to configure major parrts of my system anymore. Also, the documentation doesn’t seem too noob-friendly to me, which also plays into the time/patience argument.
Is it ready? Can anyone seriously recommend it for a lazy ex-Arch user who doesn’t want to break another linux installation?
Thank you in advance. :)
On most systems you can press a hotkey in grub to edit the Linux command line that will be booted and in about 7 keystrokes gain access to any unlocked filesystem. Asking how you can break into a system you physically control is like asking how many ways you could break into a house supposing you had an hour alone with a crowbar the answers are legion. No machine in someone else’s hand which is unlocked can possibly be deemed secure.
Even dumber no installer will create such an insecure configuration because the people that design Linux installers are smarter than you.
Though after a point rubber hose cryptanalysis will become the more pragmatic option for an attacker.
Depends on the attacker. For example: In Europe, law enforcement can legally confiscate/steal your laptop and read out the keys from RAM. They can’t (legally) force you to give up your password.
I can say with full confidence this is something you’ll never actually need to worry about. Law enforcement isn’t just going to grab laptops and pull keys. Plus, it’s easier for them to grab the laptop while it’s logged in anyways. 😐
I know of several instances where laptops where confiscated and I wouldn’t put it past law enforcement to know how to extract the keys.