Unlock LUKS via SSH in Debian

As already described in my previous post Headless Debian install via SSH, I am dealing with a headless system. As I am encrypting my system and drives with LUKS, I need a way to enter the password in case of a reboot.

So what is the solution

First install Dropbear on the server by apt-get install dropbear. Then configure initramfs network usage; edit /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf. You probably have to add the lines for dropbear and update the device string. This configuration is using DHCP to obtain an IP, if you have a static configuration, use: IP=<SERVER-IP>::<STANDARD-GATEWAY>:<SUBNETMASK>:<HOSTNAME>:eth0:off

#
# DROPBEAR: [ y | n ]
#
# Use dropbear if available.
#
DROPBEAR=y

DEVICE=eth0
IP=:::::eth0:dhcp

Next, delete the standard private and public keys on the server

rm /etc/initramfs-tools/root/.ssh/id_rsa
rm /etc/initramfs-tools/root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Then create your own key pair (we assume you use id_rsa as a name) on your client machine and upload it to the server.

ssh-keygen
scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub myuser@debian_headless:id_rsa.pub

After that, log in to the server and add the key to authorized_key file an remove the public key on the server.

ssh myuser@debian_headless
sudo sh -c "cat id_rsa.pub >> /etc/initramfs-tools/root/.ssh/authorized_keys"
rm id_rsa.pub

Now we need to update initramfs and grub by update-initramfs -u -k all and update-grub2

On some configurations the network won’t get reconfigured on runtime values, hence we need to trigger an update. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and add as first line of the primary interface pre-up ip addr flush dev eth0

Restart server and log in from your client with ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa root@<server-ip> to set the password to unlock

echo -n "<LUKS encryption password>" > /lib/cryptsetup/passfifo
exit

EDIT: on newer systems a cryptroot-unlock will suffice.

The server should now boot normally and regular SSH should come up.

Optional

You can also create a little script for the passphrase in /etc/initramfs-tools/hooks/unlock

#!/bin/bash
PREREQ=""
prereqs() {
  echo "$PREREQ"
}

case $1 in
prereqs)
prereqs
exit 0
;;
esac

. /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hook-functions

cat > "${DESTDIR}/root/unlock" << EOF #!/bin/sh /lib/cryptsetup/askpass 'passphrase: ' > /lib/cryptsetup/passfifo
EOF

chmod u+x "${DESTDIR}/root/unlock"

exit 0

Do not forget to make it executable with chmod +x /etc/initramfs-tools/hooks/unlock and update initramfs with update-initramfs -u -k all and update-grub2