Package: debian-installer Severity: wishlist After reflecting for a few days about password generation and writing an [article][1] about it, I was told the debian-installer may be a good place to encourage people to set strong passwords. In the d-i, we set one or three critically important passwords: the main user account and, optionnally, the root account and crypto passphrase. The latter password seems especially important to be cryptographically secure.
[1]: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/713806/f43f8fca9c10099a/ As things stand, the user is left on his own: there are little instructions on how to choose a proper password, what to do with it, how to not forget it... I would recommend actually generating the password for the user, using a random sample of words from a word list. This can be done with the diceware or xkcdpass software, or it could be implemented from scratch if we do not want the extra dependency. If entropy is an issue, we can tell the user to enter the results from actual dice rolls. But after reviewing a [CCC talk about entropy in the kernel][2], I am actually quite confident that the kernel RNG, in modern Linux installs, is sufficiently initialized for cryptographic use. [2]: https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7441-the_plain_simple_reality_of_entropy) I understand this is a significant change, but I didn't want that idea to get lost anywhere. I believe that randomly-generated yet memorable passphrases could significantly improve the security of Debian installs. Thank you for your consideration. A. -- System Information: Debian Release: 9.0 APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (1, 'unstable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=fr_CA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_CA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
