Fedora 14, wireless keyboards and encryption

[Chris Northwood]

Hi there,

So, I'm having a problem with my Fedora 14 setup. I've recently
installed the distro on the machine, and set up full disk encryption
using the standard method in Anaconda. However, on the passphrase
screen (the one which appears as the OS starts), any input on my
wireless USB keyboard (this one:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223792) doesn't work -
there appears to be no response to input from the keyboard. If I
connect a wired keyboard (this isn't a long-term solution, however -
the box is to become a media server, hidden behind my TV), then I can
enter the passphrase and continue just fine - once I get to the normal
user login screen, then I can enter my password and log in then. I
don't believe it's a BIOS problem as I can use the keyboard to
navigate around the BIOS setup screens no problem.

I did set up my machine using the wired keyboard, and only changed to
the wireless one at a later date, so I'm wondering if some relevant
kmod is missing when it's required, or something like that.

Any help to get my wireless keyboard up and running so I can enter my
passphrase with it would be much appreciated!

Regards,

Chris Northwood

[Phil Meyer]

On 11/30/2010 04:32 PM, Chris Northwood wrote:
>  Hi there,
>
>  So, I'm having a problem with my Fedora 14 setup. I've recently
>  installed the distro on the machine, and set up full disk encryption
>  using the standard method in Anaconda. However, on the passphrase
>  screen (the one which appears as the OS starts), any input on my
>  wireless USB keyboard (this one:
>  http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223792) doesn't work -
>  there appears to be no response to input from the keyboard. If I
>  connect a wired keyboard (this isn't a long-term solution, however -
>  the box is to become a media server, hidden behind my TV), then I can
>  enter the passphrase and continue just fine - once I get to the normal
>  user login screen, then I can enter my password and log in then. I
>  don't believe it's a BIOS problem as I can use the keyboard to
>  navigate around the BIOS setup screens no problem.
>
>  I did set up my machine using the wired keyboard, and only changed to
>  the wireless one at a later date, so I'm wondering if some relevant
>  kmod is missing when it's required, or something like that.
>
>  Any help to get my wireless keyboard up and running so I can enter my
>  passphrase with it would be much appreciated!
>
>  Regards,
>
>  Chris Northwood 

Best Guess:

By not having the wireless (USB dongle, I am assuming) when installing, 
the system did not put the USB human interface drivers in the initrd file.

You can easily run dracut to correct that.

You may want to substitute values in my example just to be sure ...

# cd /boot
# dracut --force initramfs-`uname -r`.img  `uname -r`

Next time you reboot you should be fine, or next time you get a kernel 
update from yum it will also get 'fixed' as long as the wireless 
keyboard is plugged in when you do it.

Good Luck!

[Mikkel]

On 11/30/2010 05:32 PM, Chris Northwood wrote:
>  Hi there,
>  
>  So, I'm having a problem with my Fedora 14 setup. I've recently
>  installed the distro on the machine, and set up full disk encryption
>  using the standard method in Anaconda. However, on the passphrase
>  screen (the one which appears as the OS starts), any input on my
>  wireless USB keyboard (this one:
>  http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223792) doesn't work -
>  there appears to be no response to input from the keyboard. If I
>  connect a wired keyboard (this isn't a long-term solution, however -
>  the box is to become a media server, hidden behind my TV), then I can
>  enter the passphrase and continue just fine - once I get to the normal
>  user login screen, then I can enter my password and log in then. I
>  don't believe it's a BIOS problem as I can use the keyboard to
>  navigate around the BIOS setup screens no problem.
>  
>  I did set up my machine using the wired keyboard, and only changed to
>  the wireless one at a later date, so I'm wondering if some relevant
>  kmod is missing when it's required, or something like that.
>  
>  Any help to get my wireless keyboard up and running so I can enter my
>  passphrase with it would be much appreciated!
>  
>  Regards,
>  
>  Chris Northwood 
You can try turning on USB support for legacy systems (or something
like that...) in your BIOS. This will make your keyboard/mouse look
like PS/2 devices. You used to have to do that so that GRUB or LILO
would see the keyboard. I am not sure if you still do.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

[Chris Northwood]

On 1 December 2010 01:39, Mikkel <mikkel(a)infinity-ltd.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 11/30/2010 05:32 PM, Chris Northwood wrote:
> > Hi there,
> >
> > So, I'm having a problem with my Fedora 14 setup. I've recently
> > installed the distro on the machine, and set up full disk encryption
> > using the standard method in Anaconda. However, on the passphrase
> > screen (the one which appears as the OS starts), any input on my
> > wireless USB keyboard (this one:
> > http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223792) doesn't work -
> > there appears to be no response to input from the keyboard. If I
> > connect a wired keyboard (this isn't a long-term solution, however -
> > the box is to become a media server, hidden behind my TV), then I can
> > enter the passphrase and continue just fine - once I get to the normal
> > user login screen, then I can enter my password and log in then. I
> > don't believe it's a BIOS problem as I can use the keyboard to
> > navigate around the BIOS setup screens no problem.
> >
> > I did set up my machine using the wired keyboard, and only changed to
> > the wireless one at a later date, so I'm wondering if some relevant
> > kmod is missing when it's required, or something like that.
> >
> > Any help to get my wireless keyboard up and running so I can enter my
> > passphrase with it would be much appreciated!
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Chris Northwood
>
>  You can try turning on USB support for legacy systems (or something
>  like that...) in your BIOS. This will make your keyboard/mouse look
>  like PS/2 devices. You used to have to do that so that GRUB or LILO
>  would see the keyboard. I am not sure if you still do.
>
>  Mikkel 
'8042 emulation' is enabled, and it makes no difference whether it's
enabled or disabled - I can't see any other reference to keyboards in
the BIOS!

Regards,

Chris Northwood

[Chris Northwood]

On 1 December 2010 00:32, Phil Meyer <pmeyer(a)themeyerfarm.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 11/30/2010 04:32 PM, Chris Northwood wrote:
> > Hi there,
> >
> > So, I'm having a problem with my Fedora 14 setup. I've recently
> > installed the distro on the machine, and set up full disk encryption
> > using the standard method in Anaconda. However, on the passphrase
> > screen (the one which appears as the OS starts), any input on my
> > wireless USB keyboard (this one:
> > http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223792) doesn't work -
> > there appears to be no response to input from the keyboard. If I
> > connect a wired keyboard (this isn't a long-term solution, however -
> > the box is to become a media server, hidden behind my TV), then I can
> > enter the passphrase and continue just fine - once I get to the normal
> > user login screen, then I can enter my password and log in then. I
> > don't believe it's a BIOS problem as I can use the keyboard to
> > navigate around the BIOS setup screens no problem.
> >
> > I did set up my machine using the wired keyboard, and only changed to
> > the wireless one at a later date, so I'm wondering if some relevant
> > kmod is missing when it's required, or something like that.
> >
> > Any help to get my wireless keyboard up and running so I can enter my
> > passphrase with it would be much appreciated!
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Chris Northwood
>
>
>  Best Guess:
>
>  By not having the wireless (USB dongle, I am assuming) when installing,
>  the system did not put the USB human interface drivers in the initrd file.
>
>  You can easily run dracut to correct that.
>
>  You may want to substitute values in my example just to be sure ...
>
>  # cd /boot
>  # dracut --force initramfs-`uname -r`.img  `uname -r`
>
>  Next time you reboot you should be fine, or next time you get a kernel
>  update from yum it will also get 'fixed' as long as the wireless
>  keyboard is plugged in when you do it.
>
>  Good Luck! 
Thanks for the advice, but after manually recreating the initrd then
the same still occurs. My wired keyboard is also USB, so I don't think
it's that. I dug into it some more and checked dmesg - my
keyboard/mouse aren't getting recognised until after LUKS. Apparently
the module I'm interested in is hid_sunplus. I tried manually adding
that to the initrd with Dracut using:

dracut --force --add-drivers hid_sunplus  initramfs-`uname -r`.img  `uname -r`

Which works! Now, I believe I have an issue where the next time
there's a kernel update, this will be lost. So I guess the question
is, how do I make sure this is included in future initramfs
generations (or is this a bug in initramfs generation?)

Thanks,

Chris Northwood

[Phil Meyer]

On 12/01/2010 04:15 PM, Chris Northwood wrote:
>  On 1 December 2010 00:32, Phil Meyer<pmeyer(a)themeyerfarm.com> 
> wrote:
> > On 11/30/2010 04:32 PM, Chris Northwood wrote:
> >> Hi there,
> >>
> >> So, I'm having a problem with my Fedora 14 setup. I've recently
> >> installed the distro on the machine, and set up full disk encryption
> >> using the standard method in Anaconda. However, on the passphrase
> >> screen (the one which appears as the OS starts), any input on my
> >> wireless USB keyboard (this one:
> >> http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223792) doesn't work -
> >> there appears to be no response to input from the keyboard. If I
> >> connect a wired keyboard (this isn't a long-term solution, however -
> >> the box is to become a media server, hidden behind my TV), then I can
> >> enter the passphrase and continue just fine - once I get to the normal
> >> user login screen, then I can enter my password and log in then. I
> >> don't believe it's a BIOS problem as I can use the keyboard to
> >> navigate around the BIOS setup screens no problem.
> >>
> >> I did set up my machine using the wired keyboard, and only changed to
> >> the wireless one at a later date, so I'm wondering if some relevant
> >> kmod is missing when it's required, or something like that.
> >>
> >> Any help to get my wireless keyboard up and running so I can enter my
> >> passphrase with it would be much appreciated!
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Chris Northwood
> >
> > Best Guess:
> >
> > By not having the wireless (USB dongle, I am assuming) when installing,
> > the system did not put the USB human interface drivers in the initrd file.
> >
> > You can easily run dracut to correct that.
> >
> > You may want to substitute values in my example just to be sure ...
> >
> > # cd /boot
> > # dracut --force initramfs-`uname -r`.img  `uname -r`
> >
> > Next time you reboot you should be fine, or next time you get a kernel
> > update from yum it will also get 'fixed' as long as the wireless
> > keyboard is plugged in when you do it.
> >
> > Good Luck!
>  Thanks for the advice, but after manually recreating the initrd then
>  the same still occurs. My wired keyboard is also USB, so I don't think
>  it's that. I dug into it some more and checked dmesg - my
>  keyboard/mouse aren't getting recognised until after LUKS. Apparently
>  the module I'm interested in is hid_sunplus. I tried manually adding
>  that to the initrd with Dracut using:
>
>  dracut --force --add-drivers hid_sunplus  initramfs-`uname -r`.img  `uname -r`
>
>  Which works! Now, I believe I have an issue where the next time
>  there's a kernel update, this will be lost. So I guess the question
>  is, how do I make sure this is included in future initramfs
>  generations (or is this a bug in initramfs generation?)
>
>  Thanks,
>
>  Chris Northwood 
Good you found the issue!

drakut is supposed to obey modprobe suggestions automatically, so I 
would suggest making a /etc/modprobe.d/my_keyboard.conf file and just 
add an alias to force the module to load.

 From then on any future run of drakut should include it, which you can 
test pretty easily.

Just run 'dracut /tmp/intiramfs.mytestfile `uname -r`',  to an alternate 
file, like /tmp/intiramfs.mytestfile, then cd to /tmp and 'gunzip -dc 
intiramfs.mytestfile | cpio -icvdmu' and look in the results for your 
driver.

Good luck!

Good Luck!

[Harald Hoyer]

Am 02.12.2010 00:15, schrieb Chris Northwood:

>  Thanks for the advice, but after manually recreating the initrd then
>  the same still occurs. My wired keyboard is also USB, so I don't think
>  it's that. I dug into it some more and checked dmesg - my
>  keyboard/mouse aren't getting recognised until after LUKS. Apparently
>  the module I'm interested in is hid_sunplus. I tried manually adding
>  that to the initrd with Dracut using:
>
>  dracut --force --add-drivers hid_sunplus  initramfs-`uname -r`.img  `uname -r`
>
>  Which works! Now, I believe I have an issue where the next time
>  there's a kernel update, this will be lost. So I guess the question
>  is, how do I make sure this is included in future initramfs
>  generations (or is this a bug in initramfs generation?)
>
>  Thanks,
>
>  Chris Northwood 

/etc/dracut.conf or /etc/dracut.conf.d/myconf.conf:

add_drivers+=" hid_sunplus "

I also fixed it upstream, thanks!
http://dracut.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=dracut/dracut;a=commit...