Improve prompting for Secure Boot password
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| shim-signed (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Critical
|
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre | ||
| Precise |
Won't Fix
|
Critical
|
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre | ||
| Trusty |
Fix Released
|
Critical
|
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre | ||
| Xenial |
Fix Released
|
Critical
|
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre | ||
Bug Description
[Impact]
On install and upgrade, shim-signed prompts users for disabling Secure Boot if DKMS packages are installed. The prompting was confusing, hard to see, and defaulted to not disabling Secure Boot.
[Test case]
(re-enable Secure Boot if necessary: 'sudo mokutil --enable-
1) Update shim-signed on a system with dkms packages installed, where Secure Boot is enabled.
Verify that as a first step you see an explanation of why you see the prompt (Secure Boot is enabled and you have third-party drivers).
Also:
Test upgrade from other release with DKMS packages installed, where Secure Boot is enabled; verify that you are prompted to disable Secure Boot, that the Disable Secure Boot checkbox is checked by default, and that you see an explanation text as a first step.
[Regression Potential]
This changes the default selection for disabling Secure Boot (picked by default), so quickly hitting "Next" will now move to prompting for the Secure Boot password to disable validation in shim; this breaks any users relying on blindly ignoring the prompts. Disabling Secure Boot will reduce the security of the system since it is no longer verified by UEFI signatures past loading the shim bootloader. In a true regression potential; should there be an issue with the prompting workflow in debconf, the usage of the debconf frontend may be impacted (for example, some particular frontend of debconf may fail (readline?))
---
Current strings in debconf templates for asking for a Secure Boot password are suboptimal:
Template: shim/secureboot_key
Type: password
_Description: Password:
Please enter a password for disabling Secure Boot. It will be asked again
after a reboot.
Template: shim/secureboot
Type: password
_Description: Re-enter password to verify:
Please enter the same password again to verify you have typed it correctly.
This would show only the short description in the debconf GNOME frontend; which may not be passing sufficient information for users to understand what is expected of them, and that they really need to remember that password since it will be asked after a reboot.
Related branches
| Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote | #1 |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu): | |
| status: | New → In Progress |
| importance: | Undecided → Critical |
| assignee: | nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) |
| Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote | #2 |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu): | |
| status: | In Progress → Fix Released |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Precise): | |
| status: | New → In Progress |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
| status: | New → In Progress |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Xenial): | |
| status: | New → In Progress |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Precise): | |
| importance: | Undecided → Critical |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
| importance: | Undecided → Critical |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Xenial): | |
| importance: | Undecided → Critical |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Precise): | |
| assignee: | nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
| assignee: | nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Xenial): | |
| assignee: | nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) |
| description: | updated |
| Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote Please test proposed package | #3 |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Xenial): | |
| status: | In Progress → Fix Committed |
| tags: | added: verification-needed |
| Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote | #4 |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
| status: | In Progress → Fix Committed |
| Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote | #6 |
| Nara Huang (narahuang) wrote | #8 |
| tags: |
added: verification-done-trusty verification-done-xenial removed: verification-done |
| tags: | removed: verification-needed |
| Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote | #10 |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Trusty): | |
| status: | Fix Committed → Fix Released |
| Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote Update Released | #11 |
| Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote | #12 |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Xenial): | |
| status: | Fix Committed → Fix Released |
| Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote | #13 |
| Changed in shim-signed (Ubuntu Precise): | |
| status: | In Progress → Won't Fix |
I think we'll also want to use this bug report to track improvements to other aspects of the prompting, such as showing the large Secure Boot explanation text that is hidden behind the Help button otherwise.