These instructions were tested, and re-tested multiple times on devuan_ascii_2.0.0-rc_i386_dvd-1 on bare metal. They worked fine, but they magically stopped working, and so I'm giving up on this technology; it's too fucking hard to use.

Computer security: Devuan + dm-crypt >

Devuan's installer has an encryption feature, but it formats your whole hard drive and uses LVM, neither of which I want.

• Given a hard drive which has regular partitioning and not LVM.

• Where a / (root) partition is encrypted (dm-crypt) and in use.

  • Such as with an earlier release of Devuan

• Install Devuan, re-using the encrypted partition without re-encrypting/formatting from scratch.

  Note - I will be writing separate instructions on how to manually make and manage encrypted partitions.

For more information on encryption, see dm-crypt.

• TODO - I had network driver issues on a new motherboard.
• Tested 2019-02-24 on my Dell Inspiron 11 3180, but
• TODO - I had issues reproducing these instructions on my existing desktop when reinstalling without a network connection.

• Tested 2018-11-24 and beforehand on my desktop.

Preparation ∞

As with anything, make backups first.

• Turn off your computer
• Remove any non-essential drives
• Insert your USB stick
• Turn on your computer

• Devuan GNU/Linux installer boot menu:

  • Graphical install
    -- (if it seems to do nothing, just wait)

Phase one - Installer basics ∞

• Select a language

  • English

• Select your location

  • United States

• Configure the keyboard

  • American English

• Configure the network

  • (do nothing yet)
  • Press Control-Alt-F2 to get to a console, and press enter to log into it.

Phase two - Create/open encrypted partition ∞

partition=sda3

dev=/dev/$partition
name=${partition}_crypt
anna-install cryptsetup-udeb partman-crypto-dm
depmod -a
# If you don't have an encrypted partition, you can make one with:
# cryptsetup -y luksFormat  $dev
cryptsetup -v luksOpen $dev $name
# If you want, you can mount and interact with the partition.
# However, to do that you need to proceed a little further in the install before coming back to this shell.
#mkdir /$name
#mount /dev/mapper/$name /$name

Press Alt-F5.

Installer basics, continued ∞

• Configure the network

  • (your choices)

• Set up users and passwords

  • Root password: (your choice)
  • Re-enter password to verify: (your choice)
  • (repeat for a user, if you like)

• Configure the clock

  • Select your time zone: (your choice)

• Partition disks

  • Manual

From here you're selecting your boot and encrypted partitions...

Partition disks ∞

unencrypted boot partition ∞

Select the partition you want to use as /boot, then continue.

• Name

  • boot

• Use as

  • Ext4 file system

• Format the partition

  • yes, format it

• Mount point

  • /boot

• Mount options

  • [x] noatime
  • [x] nodiratime
  • TODO - should I noexec or other options?

• Label

  • boot

(Done setting up the partition)

encrypted root partition ∞

Select the one that has Encrypted volume. It will look something like this:

Encrypted volume (sda3_crypt) - 4.0 TB Linux device-mapper (crypt)
  >  #1    4.0 TB   ext4

Select it, then continue.

• If you created a new encrypted partition, you will be prompted with "Create a new empty partition table on this device?". Say yes.

• Use as

  • Ext4 file system

• Format the partition

  • no, keep existing data

• Mount point

  • /

• Mount options

  • [x] noatime
  • [x] nodiratime
  • TODO - I believe the "discard" option is for an SSD.

• (Done setting up the partition)

  Warning - If you don't see "format the partition", then something is odd and you must not continue. I've seen this problem come and go, and only by carefully following these instructions have I been able to get it to appear.

10 partman-crypto/text/erase_data_partition doesn't exist

Continuing the install ∞

• Partition disks

  • Finish partitioning and write changes to disk

• Partition disks: re. the swap

  • I don't use a swap partition. If I did, I would encrypt it which would require typing in a second password every bootup. A swap partition would also allow for hibernation (suspend-to-disk).
  • (o) No
  • (_) Yes

Install the base system
Base system installation error
The debootstrap program exited with an error (return value 1).
Check /var/log/syslog or see virtual console 4 for the details.

debootstrap: tar: can't open './etc/libaudit.conf': File exists
debootstrap: xzcat: short write

rm -rf .config bin boot dev etc lib media mnt opt proc run sbin srv tmp usr var
rm -f .bash_history initrd.img initrd.img.old vmlinuz vmlinuz.old

• Write the changes to disks?

  • (_) No
  • (o) Yes
  • Warning - Make damned sure you understand what's being done!

Final steps ∞

Install the base system

• Configure the package manager

  • Use a network mirror?
    -- (your choice)
    -- I find it odd to be asked this if I do an install without networking set up.

• Configuring popularity-contest

  • Participate in the package usage survey?
    -- (your choice)

• Note: If you have a network connection while it's installing, it appears to automatically download packages.

Software selection
Choose software to install:

(your choices, but I do this):

• [x] Devuan desktop environment
• [_] ... Xfce (Default)
• [_] ... MATE
• [_] ... KDE
• [_] web server
• [_] print server
• [_] ssh server

• [x] standard system utilities

  Curiously, when connected to the internet during this installation process, I get additional choices: LXQt, Console productivity.

  Personally I install MATE and then uninstall it and set up my own stuff, but you can easily break your system doing this (I have).

  (If you are prompted to choose a login manager, pick what you like.)

Install the GRUB boot loader on a hard disk:

• Install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record?

  • (_) No
  • (o) Yes

• Device for boot loader installation:

  • /dev/sda

Post-install manual work ∞

(Boot from your USB drive again)

Devuan GNU/Linux installer boot menu

• Advanced options

  • Graphical rescue mode
    -- (if it seems to do nothing, just wait)

• Select a language

  • English

• Select your location

  • United States

• Configure the keyboard

  • American English

• Configure the network

  • (your choice)
  • Hostname: (your choice)

Enter rescue mode

• Passphrase for /dev/sda3

  • (your password)

• Device to use as root file system

  • /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt
  • FIXME - this stopped working!
    -- While I can unlock it, I can't mount it. I don't know why; it's not in use.

• Mount separate /boot partition?

  • (_) No
  • (o) Yes

• Rescue operations

  • Execute a shell in /dev/mapper/sda3_crypt

bash

# You may need -f10 or -f11.  Check which one of these gives you a UUID.  TODO - is there a better way?
# ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid | grep /sda3 | cut -d' ' -f10
# ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid | grep /sda3 | cut -d' ' -f11
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid | grep /sda3 | cut -d' ' -f10 >> /etc/crypttab
nano /etc/crypttab

You want to craft a line like this:

sda3_crypt  UUID=(YOUR CODE)  none  luks

For more, see https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/crypttab.html

update-initramfs -k all -c -t

(You will get some warnings; don't worry.)

/dev/mapper/sda3_crypt  /  ext4  noatime,nodiratime,errors=remount-ro  0  1

exit
exit

• Rescue operations

  • Reboot the system

(remove the USB key as it reboots)

The system should now be working as-expected. You will now be prompted for a password on bootup.