Application level requirements for secure password management were set
out in "LUKS password handling, threats and preventative measures" [1].
The requirements are:
1) Passwords are stored in RAM and are not allowed to be paged to swap.
(However hibernating with GParted still running will write all of RAM
to swap).
2) Passwords are wiped from RAM when no longer needed. When each
password is no longer needed and when GParted closes.
3) Passwords are referenced by unique key. Recommend using LUKS UUIDs
as the unique key.
(Each LUKS password should only ever need to be entered once for each
execution of GParted. Therefore the passwords can't be stored in any
of the existing data structures such as Partitions or LUKS_Info cache
because all of these are cleared and reloaded on each device
refresh).
There seems to be two possible implementation methods: use an existing
library to provide secure memory handling, or write our own.
Libgcrypt [2] and libsodium [3] cryptographic libraries both provide
secure memory handling. (Secure memory is quite simple really, some
virtual memory locked into RAM which is zeroed when no longer needed).
Linking to an encryption library just to provide secure memory seems
like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Also because of requirement
(3) above a module is needed to "own" the pointers to the passwords in
the secure memory. Managing the secure memory ourselves is probably no
more code that that needed to interface to libgcrypt. Therefore handle
the secure memory ourselves.
So far the module is only compiled. It is not used anywhere in GParted.
[1] LUKS password handling, threats and preventative measures
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627701#c56
[2] libgcrypt general purpose cryptographic library, as used in GNU
Privacy Guard
https://gnupg.org/related_software/libgcrypt/
[3] libsodium crypto library
https://download.libsodium.org/doc/
Bug 795617 - Implement opening and closing of LUKS mappings
04637a3426