Read-Only: Setting Hard Drives to Read-Only
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Depending on the user's use case. Choose one.
- A) ISO users installing Kicksecure: Using the ISO just to install Kicksecure? This does not matter. The user can ignore any live mode related warnings. These are not applicable.
- B) Interested in live mode? See below.
When using live mode (grub-live or ISO live), no changes are made to the disk. For added security, consider setting your disk to read-only mode, if possible.
Sometimes it is possible to optionally set the disks to read-only. This increases the security of live mode because otherwise malware running as root could theoretically mount the image read-write and gain persistence in this way.
Introduction[edit]
The emphasis is on if possible.
This is platform-specific.
Unfortunately, read-only mode is not easily available on all platforms.
Write protection can refer to very different security proprieties. See Verified_Boot#Write_Protection.
VMs[edit]
VirtualBox[edit]
Step-by-step guide on implementing the Immutable Disk Method for Virtual Machine (VM) Live Mode in VirtualBox, focusing on secure, read-only VM configurations.
This option is the official method for setting VMs to read-only in VirtualBox. It will only work with the grub-live package, which is installed by default. [1]
1. Make the VirtualBox disk immutable / read-only.
This step is crucial. Otherwise, contents might be recoverable from the host drive. [2]
Follow these steps:
- Power off the VM.
- In the VirtualBox main window, navigate to:
File→Tools→Virtual Media Manager.
- Select the disk to write-protect and release it.
- Then on
Type→set it to Immutable.
- In the VirtualBox main window, navigate to the settings of the VM.
- Under storage, select the top controller and add the existing hard disk there.
2. Launch live-mode.
Follow the documentation on the Live Mode wiki page.
3. Done.
The process of enabling read-only mode has been completed.
KVM[edit]
1. Set the VM disks to read-only.
Follow these steps:
- Power off the machine.
- Set the hard disk to read-only in the virt-manager GUI before booting into live mode.
2. Launch live-mode.
Follow the documentation on the Live Mode wiki page.
3. Optional: Revert the read-only change.
To boot into normal mode again, revert the change from step 1 and choose the normal boot option in the GRUB menu.
4. Done.
The process of enabling read-only mode has been completed.
Qubes[edit]
grub-live is currently unsupported on Qubes. [3] This issue is unspecific to Kicksecure. Qubes issue: implement live boot by porting grub-live to Qubes - amnesia / non-persistent boot / anti-forensics
In Qubes, Disposables are a suitable alternative.
Host Operating System[edit]
This would require a hard drive that comes with a physical read-only switch.
This is undocumented and unspecific to Kicksecure.
Comparison with Tails[edit]
Comparison between grub-live and Tails
Alternative Configurations[edit]
Platform specific notice.
- KVM: Skip this section if the KVM Live-mode
- VirtualBox: Skip this section if VirtualBox Live-mode configuration steps above have already been completed.
VirtualBox and KVM: VM Live Mode: Alternative ro-mode-init Configuration
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑
This option will not work with the
ro-mode-initpackage. - ↑ VirtualBox implements hard disk write protection differently. If an immutable virtual machine is booted, VirtualBox will always create a snapshot where data is written. After shutting down and booting the VM again (a soft reboot is inadequate), the old snapshot will be deleted and a new one created. Consequently, data will not persist in the VM, even if Live-mode is not selected. However, since the data is written to the hard disk of the host (instead of memory), it is easily recoverable. Therefore, selecting Live-mode is essential for safety. A snapshot file is still created, but it will not store any altered content from the VM.
- ↑
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