Not sure what happened here. I’ve had everything but /boot on LVM LUKS encryption since I installed 11.4 on my netbook. Suddenly it won’t accept my password and boot. Nothing had been updated since the last successful boot. The only possibly different thing that occurred was that I had plugged in my Android phone to charge before it booted up. Anyway, the specific error it gives when I enter the password (and I’m absolutely sure it’s the correct password):
No key available with this passphrase.
Here is everything else on the screen:
doing fast boot
Creating device nodes with udev
[number (not sure if relevant/unique)] fb:conflicting fb hw usage inteldrmfb vs VESA VGA - removing gen
Volume group "system" not found
Volume group "system" not found
Volume group "system" not found
Volume group "system" not found
***Note: only US keyboard layout is supported.
*** Please ensure that the password is typed correctly.
Waiting for device /dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_ID-part1 to appear: ok
Need to unlock encrypted volumes
Enter LUKS Passphrase:
Unlocking cr_sda1 (/dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA-ID-part1)
No key available with this passphrase.
Unlocking cr_sda1 (/dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA-ID-part1)
Enter passphrase for /dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA-ID-part1:
No key available with this passphrase.
Need to unlock encrypted volumes
Enter LUKS passphrase:
On 08/28/2011 05:46 AM, einheit47 wrote:
> quite sure
oh! most (all?) laptops have some keys with multiple uses depending on
some other event (like an “Fn key”, or cap locks key [which you say is
off, have you tried with it on? {maybe the off-on got reversed in
hardware or bios or keyboard controller or or or}], or a left alt key,
or right alt key or or or or)…have you yet tried combos different
from what you expect to work?
i ask, because it is obvious that something changed in your
software-connected-to-hardware-through-BIOS system (no?) so you either
have to trial and error to learn what changed at the keyboard, or give up…
another way to say that: i don’t think there is anyone on this forum (or
in the world) that can tell you how to unlock an encrypted disk if you
don’t have the password it expects…
see, it is obviously not expecting what you are giving it…and, i
don’t expect that to change until you discover what did
changed…suddenly…somehow…like, maybe the tiny section of
your hard drive which contains the hash code password it expects you
to enter was corrupted by a near light speed electron from the last
sunspot, ripping through your drive on its way to infinity and that
event changed a single zero to a one . . . or . . .
–
DD Caveat
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobile” of operating systems!
Yeah, I’m kind of afraid something like the near light speed electron happened, or that somehow the LUKS became corrupted. I did try it with the phone plugged in, with the same result. I also tried:
cryptsetup -v luksOpen /dev/sda1 sda1_crypt
while in a live USB, and I got the same error. I was also able to make sure that keys were producing the expected characters, so I don’t think it’s that. Everything except one file that I was working on are backed up elsewhere, so it’s not a big deal if I have to reinstall. But it is unsettling to say the least if an encryption setup can just go bad after 5 months.
On 08/28/2011 10:26 AM, einheit47 wrote:
>
> so it’s not a big deal if I have to reinstall.
of course, it takes a lot of time…
> But it is unsettling to say the least if an encryption setup can just
> go bad after 5 months.
actually, i don’t think it “just went bad”…i think something
happened…like you i do not know what…hardware? software? combo of
the two with a corner case bug (of android plugged in with your
specific BIOS and kernel version and lvm version and and and) i have no
idea…but, what i would do is check the drive for other errors (once
you get a chance to touch it)…
ymmv, but personally i stay away from ‘fancy’ things like LVM and RAID
because if you go though all the data loss postings in the universe you
will very often find terms like: lvm, reiserfs, raid, and . . .
–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobile” of operating systems!
You’re probably right that there is some reason, but finding out what is probably going to be impossible at this point. I also see now that this sort of thing can be the cause of data loss. Nevertheless, I will be using it again when I reinstall. It’s worth it to me to make sure that if I lose the netbook or it gets stolen, nobody can access the data.
i was watching this thread because i also use LUKS on some devices, and i am far from being completely knowledgeable about the subject… but it appears to me that the important issue is that the volume group “system” is never found.
some recovery disk that has LVM2/LUKS tools on it could shed some light on whether the volume “system” is there and accessible. I’d expect most “live” disks would have them too.
I think the message about the system group was there before, but I am not sure. I tried using a live USB, but haven’t been able to get to a place where I can access volume groups. I have tried to use:
cryptsetup -v luksDump /dev/sda1
which gives me normal-looking readout,
and
cryptsetup -v luksOpen /dev/sda1 sda1
which returns the same error about the passphrase that I get on boot.