/mandos/trunk

-*- org -*-

* Prerequisites

** Operating System

   Debian 6.0 "squeeze" or Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat".

   This is mostly for the support scripts which make sure that the

   client is installed and started in the initial RAM disk environment

   and that the initrd.img file is automatically made unreadable.  The

   server and client programs themselves *could* be run in other

   distributions, but they *are* specific to GNU/Linux systems, and

   are not written with portabillity to other Unixes in mind.

** Libraries

   The following libraries and packages are needed.  (It is possible

   that it might work with older versions of some of these, but these

   versions are confirmed to work.  Newer versions are almost

   certainly OK.)

*** Documentation

    These are required to build the manual pages for both the server

    and client:

    + DocBook 4.5         http://www.docbook.org/

      Note: DocBook 5.0 is not compatible.

    + DocBook XSL stylesheets 1.71.0

                   http://wiki.docbook.org/topic/DocBookXslStylesheets

    Package names:

    docbook docbook-xsl

    To build just the documentation, run the command "make doc".  Then

    the manual page "mandos.8", for example, can be read by running

    "man -l mandos.8".

*** Mandos Server

    + GnuTLS 2.4          http://www.gnu.org/software/gnutls/

    + Avahi 0.6.16        http://www.avahi.org/

    + Python 2.6          http://www.python.org/

    + Python-GnuTLS 1.1.5 http://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-gnutls/

    + dbus-python 0.82.4  http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-python/

    + PyGObject 2.14.2    http://library.gnome.org/devel/pygobject/

    + Urwid 0.9.8.3       http://excess.org/urwid/

    Strongly recommended:

    + fping 2.4b2-to-ipv6 http://www.fping.com/

    Package names:

    python-gnutls avahi-daemon python python-avahi python-dbus

    python-gobject python-urwid

*** Mandos Client

    + initramfs-tools 0.85i

                  http://packages.qa.debian.org/i/initramfs-tools.html

    + GnuTLS 2.4          http://www.gnu.org/software/gnutls/

    + Avahi 0.6.16        http://www.avahi.org/

    + GnuPG 1.4.9         http://www.gnupg.org/

    + GPGME 1.1.6         http://www.gnupg.org/related_software/gpgme/

    Package names:

    initramfs-tools libgnutls-dev libavahi-core-dev gnupg

    libgpgme11-dev

* Installing the Mandos server

  1. Do "make doc".

  2. On the computer to run as a Mandos server, run the following

     command:

     For Debian: su -c 'make install-server'

     For Ubuntu: sudo make install-server

     (This creates a configuration without any clients configured; you

     need an actually configured client to do that; see below.)

* Installing the Mandos client.

  1. Do "make all doc".

  2. On the computer to run as a Mandos client, run the following

     command:

     For Debian: su -c 'make install-client'

     For Ubuntu: sudo make install-client

     This will also create an OpenPGP key, which will take some time

     and entropy, so be patient.

  3. Run the following command:

     For Debian: su -c 'mandos-keygen --password'

     For Ubuntu: sudo mandos-keygen --password

     When prompted, enter the password/passphrase for the encrypted

     root file system on this client computer.  The command will

     output a section of text, starting with a [section header].  Copy

     and append this to the file "/etc/mandos/clients.conf" *on the

     server computer*.

  4. Configure the client to use the correct network interface.  The

     interface to use is automatically chosen at boot, and if this

     needs to be adjusted, it will be necessary to edit

     /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf to change the DEVICE setting

     there.  Alternatively, the file /etc/mandos/plugin-runner.conf

     can be edited to add a "--device" parameter for the

     mandos-client(8) plugin.  Please note: If any of those files are

     changed, the initrd.img file must be updated, possibly using the

     following command:

	# update-initramfs -k all -u

  5. On the server computer, start the server by running the command

     For Debian: su -c 'invoke-rc.d mandos start'

     For Ubuntu: sudo service mandos start

     At this point, it is possible to verify that the correct password

     will be received by the client by running the command:

	# /usr/lib/mandos/plugins.d/mandos-client \

		--pubkey=/etc/keys/mandos/pubkey.txt \

		--seckey=/etc/keys/mandos/seckey.txt; echo

     This command should retrieve the password from the server,

     decrypt it, and output it to standard output.

     After this, the client computer should be able to reboot without

     needing a password entered on the console, as long as it does not

     take more than an hour to reboot.

* Further customizations

  You may want to tighten or loosen the timeouts in the server

  configuration files; see mandos.conf(5) and mandos-clients.conf(5).

  If IPsec is not used, it is suggested that a more cryptographically

  secure checker program is used and configured, since without IPsec

  ping packets can be faked.