From Fedora Project Wiki

Trusted Boot

Summary

Ability for users to configure their system to make use of the TPM and hardware support in order to verify that the machine is running the intended kernel.

Owner

Current status

  • Targeted release: 12
  • Last updated: July 21, 2009
  • Percentage of completion: 00%

Detailed Description

Most of the support for trusted boot already exists in Fedora but all of the pieces have never been put together. The goal of this feature is to allow users to boot a kernel, and after it is booted to know that the kernel they are running is the kernel they expected to have running.

Benefit to Fedora

Security minded users have no way of knowing if their kernel is the expected kernel. They have no way of knowing if the system under them has been trojaned. The point of this feature is to give users a method to verify that the system that booted was the system they expected to boot.

Scope

Changes are expected to be needed in grub, tpmutils, trousers, and possibly in the kernel configuration.

How To Test

  • At the moment testing isn't well defined. Ultimately tests will involve users with TPM enabled hardware to be able to verify the same kernel booted they expected or a different kernel booted than they expected.
  • FIXME--more details needed

User Experience

No one will notice a change unless they specifically configure their system. There are no planned default changes.

Dependencies

The grub changes, and possibly the intel TXT support are requirements which I may not be able to control but which may cause the feature to fail to complete.

Contingency Plan

None necessary, if it doesn't work, it wasn't going to be default anyway. Users just won't be able to use it.

Documentation

  • FIXME--Nothing et.

Release Notes

  • FIXME---No good note yet as there is no documentation. There is no upstream.

Comments and Discussion