how do you distribute secrets ?

[Thomas Lange]

>>>>> On 22 Apr 2004 10:50:47 +0200, Holger Levsen <hl at hbt.de> said:

    > Hi,
    > in FAI's simple examples the root password is distributed to the install
    > clients as a md5sum which is world-readable through the nfs-exported
    > FAI_CONFIGDIR.
I think the examples are not using md5sums but the normal crypted
passwords.

    > It's a good solution as a starting point but not really sufficient for
    > installations where you need real security.
Sure.

    > How do you distribute passwords, private ssh-host-keys and/or private
    > ssl-certificates ?
Can you realy achieve real security during installation? PXE is a
broadcast protocol, tftp is also very insecure, NFS is also not so
secure, so how can the install client verify that it gets its
information from the right install server and not from a bad guy? How
can a install server verify that the install client is not cheating its
MAC or IP address?

On starting point could be to boot from CD (faibootCD) which
includes the publik key of the install server, so all communication
could be crypted and authenticated. Is there a BIOS that can store
some misc data (public and private keys of the install client) ? That
would be nice for security. Or we should create a small partition
which includes this data and will never be deleted.

-- 
regards Thomas