Please include cryptsetup on live CD

[era]

Binary package hint: casper

Sorry, can't figure out which package this properly belongs in. Feel free to reassign if Casper is not it.

It would be nice if the Live CD pool contained cryptsetup and related utilities, and in general, security-related packages which you might be required to install before you are allowed to connect a machine to the Internet.

Testing Hardy beta live CD dated 2008-03-20 at the moment.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

There is no entirely appropriate package (all this lives in the seeds), but ubuntu-meta is the closest.

[gmud (gmud)]

I would like to see this, too. It would really help if cryptsetup and lvm2 package is already installed in the live image and related modules (dm-mod, dm-crypt, aes) would be already loaded.

As an exmaple case you would need it after your harddisk got corrupted and you installed with alternate cd and lvm encrypted volumes. To access your data and fix things you now need a network connection, install cryptsetup, lvm2 and load the modules (intrepid).

[Kai Jauch (kaijauch)]

I booted the Jaunty 64-bit Alpha 5 LiveCD and attached an encrypted disk via USB. I was asked to enter the password to unlock it, but because the cryptsetup package is missing it failed:

"Unable to set up crypto device
Error org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Crypto.CryptSetupMissing
Error setting up /dev/sdf1 - /sbin/cryptsetup not found"

Either cryptsetup should be included on the LiveCD or a check should be implemented whether cryptsetup is installed. If it isn't, it should offer to install it.

[Leo (leorolla)]

I am also marking for Kubuntu and Netbook Edition.

After installed, cryptsetup occupies 0.5 MB.

It is very inconvenient not to be able to mount pendrives that have previously been encrypted with the native, standard, Ubuntu-supported encryption scheme.

Sometimes there is simply nobody with the admin password around and in any case some people may find it strange that you ask them to type "the" password just to see your files.

In my opinion, it should be on the LiveCD for recovery purposes and installed by default for the above reason.

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

I very much think that this ought to be done in the platform seed and not in each flavor seed.\

Also this request was turned down for kubuntu-meta specifically some time ago, presented with recovery as rationale where it was argued that neither Kubuntu nor Ubuntu is exactly targetting this use case. Mind that 0.5 MiB less of space for translations can be the amount that decides whether a translation can be shipped on the CD or not.

[Leo (leorolla)]

Indeed, I don't really agree with the recovery rationale for one reason: if the person is doing recovery, they are savy enough to first make a LiveUSB with persistent memory and install whatever will be needed for that recovery.

But maybe kubuntu team can reconsider the previous decision with the argument that encrypted storage media has become a still-growing widespread trend and it is worth dropping 0.5 MB of something else in favor of cryptsetup.

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

Well, if it is decided that generally providing users a good out-of-the-box encrypted-drive-support experience to be an acceptable rationale, then it should be of genuine use for every Ubuntu flavor and added to the platform seeds. On that part I probably should mention that when this was dicussed by Kubuntu there were no strong feelings towards not having it on the CD, we just considered the presented rationale insufficient.
In either case I do think that this should be brought into the platform seed and not the specific ones, or if the rationale fails to justify requirements for the platform seed to bring it once more up with the specific seeds.
Since this is essentially a platform feature, one ought to be able to expect it on each major Ubuntu flavor, having these sort of features get adopted in Kubuntu but not Ubuntu or in Ubuntu but not Kubuntu would cause a major headache amongst the target audience of having cryptsetup be part of the default install. Whether a graphical user interface / user interaction is implemented ontop of the platform support is then a decision that has to be made for each flavor individually anyway.

[Leo (leorolla)]

How can we add the platform seed to this LP report?

Just a comment: it may not really provide encrypted-drive-support experience. It will certainly provide encrypted-drive support.
The user will get an "encrypt underlying volume" checkbox when creating a filesystem, which may trigger their curiosity, google, digg, and finally "Wow! That's so cool! Why wasn't I using this before?".
Moreover, if an encrypted pendrive is plugged, the user will see it automatically mounted with a golden lock on the top of its icon... much better experience than producing error messages after partially mounting the device, which is what it does now.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

As of maverick at least:

Package: cryptsetup
...
Task: ubuntu-live, kubuntu-live, kubuntu-mobile-live, kubuntu-netbook-live, edubuntu-live, xubuntu-live, mythbuntu-live, netbook-live