wrong branch :c

3 files changed, 164 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/site_root/blog/03-remote_full_system_encryption_with_arch.lua b/site_root/blog/03-remote_full_system_encryption_with_arch.lua
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43fccfa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/site_root/blog/03-remote_full_system_encryption_with_arch.lua
@@ -0,0 +1,103 @@
+return {
+   title='remote-unlocking full system encryption with arch linux',
+   layout='blog',
+   date='2022-11-17',
+   markdown=[[
+I recently needed to set up a server with full system encryption and was faced with the conundrum: if I need to reboot, the keys are either (a) on the server, and thus not actually secure, or (b) need to be entered at boot, which typically means (I thought) that one needs to actually enter a password. However! I searched around a bit and saw that people used the dropbear ssh server in their initramfs images to log in remotely and thereby allow for a genuinely headless full-disk encrypted system. Unfortunately, almost all of the resources I could find on this was for Debian-based systems, and I had a hell of a time getting it to work on Arch.
+
+So, to spare others the pain I went through getting this to work, here is **sanine's guide to remote-unlocking encrypted Arch systems**.
+
+
+## 1. set up arch with full system encryption
+
+The Arch wiki has fairly complete guides on how to do this! I used the [installation guide] and [encrypting an entire system guide] to get my initial installs set up.
+
+A note on the bootloader steps, because this was not made clear to me the first time I did it: the kernel parameters are passed as *command-line* parameters. If you're using GRUB, for instance, they should be put in the `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX` variable, not as config variables in their own right.
+
+
+## 2. install the needed packages
+
+This should be a pretty easy step. On your lovely fresh install, just do
+
+```
+pacman -S mkinitcpio-netconf mkinitcpio-dropbear
+```
+
+The `netconf` hook will set up networking for us; the `dropbear` hook sets up an ssh server for us.
+
+
+## 3. write a completely new initcpio hook
+
+Yeah, sorry, this is where it got weird for me and I spent several days just reading the man pages convinced I had done something wrong. Nope! As it is now, if we set up the hooks, the dropbear server would run just fine but wouldn't actually accept any logins because there's no `/etc/passwd` file in the initramfs image for it to check if a user is valid. Luckily, it's pretty easy to create a hook that adds one for us. Create the file `/usr/lib/initcpio/install/rootpasswd` and write in it
+
+```
+#!/bin/bash
+
+build ()
+{
+	echo "root::0:0::/root:/bin/sh" > /tmp/rootpasswd
+	add_file /tmp/rootpasswd /etc/passwd
+}
+```
+
+You can change the user if you want to, though you'll have to go modify the dropbear install file so that it sets up the `root_key` in the correct folder.
+
+
+## 4. hack the encrypt hook
+
+(If you're using the sd-encrypt hook: I have no idea how applicable any of this section will be to you. Try it and let me know!)
+
+Okay, now it's possible to log in to the ssh server so what's the problem? Well, the default encrypt hook only checks if the target volume is present at the beginning. If you unlock it halfway through, when it's already prompted you for a password (say, for instance, by sshing in and decrypting it) it will just break. So we need to write *another* new hook. We still need the encrypt hook's install file though, so do
+
+```
+cd /usr/lib/initcpio/install
+cp encrypt remote-encrypt
+```
+
+In your favorite text editor, enter the following into `/usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/remote-encrypt`:
+
+```
+#!/bin/sh
+
+run_hook ()
+{
+	echo "waiting for ${root} to be available..."
+	while ! [ -e "${root}" ]; do
+		sleep 2;
+	done
+}
+```
+
+Okay, now you're finished writing hooks. Time to bring everything together.
+
+
+## 5. bring everything together
+
+Edit your `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` HOOKS line so that it looks a little like this:
+
+```
+HOOKS=(base udev rootpasswd keyboard keymap consolefont
+autodetect modconf block netconf dropbear remote-encrypt
+lvm2 filesystems fsck)
+```
+
+Remember that the order of your hooks is important! When you're done, run `mkinitcpio -P` to regenerate your initramfs images.
+
+Now, edit your chosen bootloader to add the kernel parameter `ip=dhcp` so that the `netconf` hook will work correctly. (If you're using GRUB, don't forget to regenerate your `grub.cfg`.)
+
+Last but not least, make sure the ssh keys you want to use for unlocking are stored like an authorized_keys file in `/etc/dropbear/root_key`.
+
+
+## 6. unlock remotely
+
+If all went well, you should now be able to reboot and ssh into your machine before disk decryption. Decryption will be different based on how you set up your machine, but if you did LVM on LUKS like me, you can do
+
+```
+cryptsetup open [cryptdevice] [target] && exit
+```
+
+The "&& exit" isn't *critical*, but it does lead to some weird effects because for some reason you won't get booted out when dropbear is supposed to die? And this triggered some ugly segfault error messages when I actually did exit after the machine fully booted. Oh well.
+
+[installation guide]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide
+[encrypting an entire system guide]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system
+]]}
diff --git a/site_root/blog/announcing_honeysuckle.lua b/site_root/blog/announcing_honeysuckle.lua
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f078585
--- /dev/null
+++ b/site_root/blog/announcing_honeysuckle.lua
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+return {
+   title='announcing honeysuckle',
+   layout='blog',
+   date='2021-05-23',
+   markdown=[[
+as i’ve been working on various projects for the past couple of years 
+i have continued to find that a combination of c and lua is my favorite 
+way to write code. the ongoing development of [my game engine honey](https://honey3d.org/)
+uses that pair and i’m planning on using it (whenever i get around to it) for my [dream 
+atlas project](https://sanine.net/projects/dream-atlas). but, and i’ll be the first
+to admit this, the c api is a little clunky. 
+i don’t generally mind that all too much (after all, one of my favorite things about 
+both c and lua is that they’re languages you can carry around in your head, and having
+a very explicit api means you only need to understand the fundamental concepts to use it)
+but it does mean that dev work goes a bit slower.
+
+i did a good bit of work streamlining the process of writing lua bindings in c when
+tinkering with honey and ever since then i’ve found myself peeking back at that code
+and re-implementing it in other projects. a colleague of mine once said that the time
+to write a library is when you’ve done something once, you’re doing it now, and you
+re pretty sure you’ll do it again, and i think i’ve quite handily cleared that condition
+so! i’m splitting that code out and refactoring it into its own library which, due
+to its historical roots, i’ve chosen to call honeysuckle.
+
+honeysuckle is still under development – the api is a bit different from the one i
+came up with when working on honey and imo is easier to use – but when it’s ready
+it will provide a whole host of helpful functions that make integrating lua scripting
+into c applications simple and fast. i am (attempting) to employ readme-driven development
+so i’ve written up a readme for honeysuckle. any feedback on the proposed api and
+features would be much appreciated! as of writing, honeysuckle is planned to include
+functions for parsing arguments to c functions from lua, creating and processing tables
+throwing and handling lua errors, using the lua registry, and creating printf-formatted strings.
+
+i’ve already created a repository for honeysuckle. there’s just a readme in there
+for now, but that will probably have changed even just later today, since i’m planning
+on working on it more this afternoon. :p
+]]}
diff --git a/site_root/blog/refactor-argent.lua b/site_root/blog/refactor-argent.lua
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b7ca4d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/site_root/blog/refactor-argent.lua
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+local md = [[
+hey there!  you might be noticing that things look a little... different around here. 
+that's because i've refactored this site to use my custom static site generator, [argent].
+i used to use jekyll, but i wanted to be able to do more *direct programming* in building my
+pages, and i wanted to be able to do that in lua. i tried looking at some of the other 
+static site generators out there using lua (and python too) but so many of them rely on
+packages that no longer exist, or language features from seven versions ago, or similar
+types of problems, that i wanted to have a site generator that *just works*.
+
+so i wrote one! i called it argent because (a) it sounds kinda cool and (b) argent, as a
+silver-white color, is used in heraldry to represent the moon, and i like the oblique reference
+to lua. it relies on posix filesystem calls (sorry windows users, you'll need msys or something
+to run it) but otherwise is totally standalone -- it packages its own lua interpreter, so language
+version (ideally) will never change.
+
+[argent]: /git/argent
+]]
+
+return {
+   title = 'refactor: argent',
+   date = '2022-01-13',
+   layout = 'blog',
+   markdown = md,
+}