Let the Linux head check for updates, and seal its device key in the TPM
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Two things the RPM shipped without, and the reason they arrive together is
that both are the same question — what may this platform ask of the machine,
and what must it not ask of the user.

◆ UPDATES: THIS CLIENT CHECKS AND FETCHES, AND PACKAGEKIT INSTALLS.

ADR 0013 rule 11 said there was no updater at all, and that went too far. It
conflated noticing that a newer build exists with installing it: the second is
what the trust argument is about, and the first is not — a client that checks
a fixed address and tells you what it found has taken no capability from
anybody. Written as a flat refusal, the rule bought its safety by paying a cost
that was avoidable, and the ADR now says so in its own words.

So LinuxUpdateChannel reads the rolling nightly release, compares versions the
way rpm compares them, downloads the package, verifies its digest and hands the
file to PackageKit over gdbus. Polkit asks; the user may say no; nothing is
torn down before the answer, because ApplyingEndsTheProcess is false and the
shell already knows what that means — it is the phone's shape, and declining an
update must not cost somebody their open shells.

Three details that are load-bearing rather than incidental:

  - The comparison is rpmvercmp and not SemVer, because rpm is what will accept
    or refuse the install. Same argument ADR 0014 makes for versionCode. The
    installed side is read out of the rpm database rather than derived from the
    assembly, so the SemVer-to-rpm translation exists in exactly one place. All
    28 expected values in RpmVersionTests came out of rpm itself rather than out
    of a reading of the algorithm.

  - The digest is checked and is not a signature. Velopack verifies its own
    downloads and Android checks a signature; an RPM over HTTPS has neither. The
    manifest names a SHA-256 and a mismatch deletes the file rather than leaving
    something installable-by-hand in the profile directory.

  - ONLY_TRUSTED is cleared, which is what routes the request to polkit's
    package-install-untrusted action. The package is unsigned, so requiring
    trust would fail every update at the last step.

◆ THE DEVICE KEY: SEALED IN THE TPM, BEHIND A PIN THE TPM CHECKS.

ADR 0007's amendment is the bar: a gate inside the process is not a gate. The
key is sealed into a TPM 2.0 keyedhash object whose userAuth comes from a PIN,
so unsealing is a command the chip refuses; the blob is encrypted to the storage
hierarchy and is useless on any other machine; nothing here ever compares a PIN.

The sealed object deliberately carries no NoDA attribute, and that one omission
is the whole reason four digits is enough: every wrong answer advances the TPM's
dictionary-attack counter and the chip stops answering entirely once it trips.
Measured at four wrong tries against a software TPM, after which the correct PIN
gets nothing either. It is asserted by a test rather than left to a reading of
the template, because removing the attribute leaves every other assertion
passing.

This is weaker than Hello and Touch ID and the difference is invisible, so it is
written down in three places rather than smoothed over: those raise their prompt
from inside the platform and this one is a window we draw. The prompt is
deliberately plain for that reason — teaching people that a convincing DodoSSH
PIN box is a system dialog is the one thing this design must not do.

Rejected, each for failing the amendment: the Secret Service API, which has no
per-use consent and is DPAPI's shape exactly; fprintd, which answers a question
and holds nothing, so skipping the call skips the gate; and a polkit-gated root
helper, which would work and puts a privileged component in a package that
installs nothing setuid.

Availability is narrower than "has a TPM": on Fedora /dev/tpmrm0 is root:tss and
desktop users are not in tss, so the ordinary case reports unavailable and keeps
asking for the passphrase. Shipping a udev rule to widen that is refused — it is
the administrator's decision, not an application package's.

◆ WHAT IS ACTUALLY VERIFIED, SINCE THAT IS THE PART THAT USUALLY ISN'T.

This is the only device key store in the repository with real coverage, and it
is only possible because the PIN is a delegate and the TPM is a device: seal,
unseal, wrong PIN, lockout, decline and a foreign blob all run unattended
against a software TPM. Windows and macOS cannot be tested at all — their
prompts block a suite forever, which WindowsDeviceKeyStoreTests records.

TSS.Net's own TcpTpmDevice cannot reach swtpm: it opens the platform socket too
and exchanges a handshake only the Microsoft reference simulator answers, so
Connect() blocks with no error and no timeout. SoftwareTpm speaks the data
channel and nothing else.

The suite also lied once and was fixed: the lockout test trips shared state, and
without a DictionaryAttackLockReset in Dispose every later test got null from a
correct PIN — six of them assert null and passed for entirely the wrong reason.

End to end on a real Fedora 44: a genuine linux-x64 publish packages, installs,
and every DT_NEEDED in the installed tree resolves except liblttng-ust, which is
the one this spec deliberately excludes. What no runner covers is /dev/tpmrm0,
PackageKit and polkit, and Phase 19 grew five checks for exactly those.

Also fixed: the magic-bytes literal picked up raw control characters, which made
LinuxDeviceKeyStore.cs binary to git — no diffs and no line-ending normalisation.
This commit is contained in:
jaap-jan committed 2026-08-22 20:02:30 +02:00
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using System.Buffers.Binary;
using System.Runtime.Versioning;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;
using DodoSSH.Client.Session;
using Tpm2Lib;
namespace DodoSSH.Client.App.Platform;
/// <summary>Why the store is asking for a PIN.</summary>
/// <remarks>
/// The two cases need different words in front of a person — one is choosing a PIN and the other is
/// entering one — and the store is the only thing that knows which is happening. Passing an enum rather
/// than two delegates keeps the prompt a single seam.
/// </remarks>
public enum DevicePinPurpose
{
/// <summary>A PIN is being chosen, as part of registering this machine.</summary>
Choosing,
/// <summary>A PIN is being asked for, to unlock.</summary>
Entering,
}
/// <summary>
/// Keeps the device key sealed inside the TPM, released only against a PIN the TPM itself checks.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// <para>
/// The Linux answer to <see cref="WindowsDeviceKeyStore"/> and <c>MacDeviceKeyStore</c>, and ADR 0007's
/// bar is the one it has to clear: <b>the enforcement must be the platform's rather than this process's.</b>
/// A store that drew its own prompt over a file it could read anyway would be the mistake that ADR's
/// 2026-07-30 amendment exists to record — malware running as the user skips the prompt and reads the file.
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// <b>Here the TPM holds the key and the TPM checks the PIN.</b> The 32-byte device key is sealed into a
/// keyedhash object whose <c>userAuth</c> is derived from the PIN, so unsealing is a command the TPM
/// refuses without it. The blob on disk is encrypted to the TPM's storage hierarchy and is useless on any
/// other machine, and the PIN is never compared by anything in this assembly. Malware running as the user
/// can ask; it cannot answer.
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// <b>And the TPM counts the failures, which is what makes a short PIN safe.</b> The sealed object
/// deliberately does not carry <c>NoDA</c>, so every wrong answer advances the dictionary-attack counter
/// and the TPM stops answering at all once it trips. Measured against a software TPM: four wrong PINs and
/// it refuses the right one too, until the lockout recovers. That is the property a four-digit secret has
/// on this platform and cannot have in a file.
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// ◆ <b>What this does NOT match, stated because the difference is real and invisible.</b> Windows Hello
/// and Touch ID raise their prompt from the platform — a secure desktop on one, a system sheet on the
/// other — so the process asking never sees the secret. Linux has no equivalent to borrow, so the PIN is
/// typed into a window this application draws, and a sufficiently determined attacker already running as
/// the user could draw a convincing copy of it. The mitigation is that they could do the same for the
/// passphrase screen, which is a much larger prize, so this is not a capability the feature creates. It is
/// still a weaker guarantee than the other two desktops have and ADR 0007 says so rather than implying
/// parity.
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// <b>Availability is narrower than "the machine has a TPM".</b> On Fedora <c>/dev/tpmrm0</c> is owned by
/// <c>root:tss</c> and mode 0660, and desktop users are not in <c>tss</c> — so the ordinary case is a
/// machine with a working TPM this process may not open. That reports unavailable and the passphrase path
/// continues, exactly as a machine with no TPM does. Widening the device's permissions is deliberately not
/// something this application's package does; see ADR 0007.
/// </para>
/// </remarks>
[SupportedOSPlatform("linux")]
public sealed class LinuxDeviceKeyStore : IDeviceKeyStore
{
/// <summary>What the blob on disk starts with, so a file from elsewhere is refused rather than parsed.</summary>
private static readonly byte[] Magic = "DSHTPMv1"u8.ToArray();
/// <summary>
/// Domain separation for the PIN, so the value handed to the TPM is this application's and not the
/// user's PIN as typed.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// The TPM compares an authValue of at most one digest in length, so something has to reduce a typed
/// string to bytes; hashing with a label rather than truncating means a PIN reused elsewhere does not
/// arrive at the TPM as the same bytes it does there. It buys nothing against an attacker who has the
/// blob and the machine — they have this constant too — and it costs one line.
/// </remarks>
private const string PinLabel = "dodossh/devicekey/pin/v1";
private readonly ClientPaths paths;
private readonly Func<DevicePinPurpose, CancellationToken, ValueTask<string?>> askForPin;
private readonly Func<Tpm2Device> openDevice;
/// <summary>Creates a store against this machine's TPM.</summary>
/// <param name="paths">Where the sealed blob lives.</param>
/// <param name="askForPin">
/// Shows the PIN prompt and answers with what was typed, or null if the user declined. Declining is
/// ordinary — see <see cref="IDeviceKeyStore"/> — and lands on the passphrase.
/// </param>
public LinuxDeviceKeyStore(
ClientPaths paths,
Func<DevicePinPurpose, CancellationToken, ValueTask<string?>> askForPin)
: this(paths, askForPin, static () => new LinuxTpmDevice())
{
}
/// <summary>Creates a store against a named TPM, which is how the tests reach a simulator.</summary>
/// <remarks>
/// The seam exists because this class is testable in a way the other two stores are not, and that is
/// worth keeping. Windows and macOS put the prompt inside the platform, so a test that exercised
/// sealing would block forever on a dialog — <c>WindowsDeviceKeyStoreTests</c> records the ten minutes
/// that took to discover. Here the prompt is a delegate and the TPM is a device, so both can be
/// supplied and the whole path runs unattended.
/// </remarks>
internal LinuxDeviceKeyStore(
ClientPaths paths,
Func<DevicePinPurpose, CancellationToken, ValueTask<string?>> askForPin,
Func<Tpm2Device> openDevice)
{
ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(paths);
ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(askForPin);
ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(openDevice);
this.paths = paths;
this.askForPin = askForPin;
this.openDevice = openDevice;
}
/// <summary>
/// The parent every sealed object hangs off, as a template rather than as a stored handle.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// <para>
/// <b>Recreated from a fixed template on every use, and not made persistent.</b> A persistent handle
/// would occupy one of the TPM's small number of NV slots forever, would have to be cleaned up by
/// <see cref="ForgetAsync"/>, and would collide with whatever else on the machine had chosen the same
/// index. Deriving it costs a command and leaves nothing behind.
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// <b>ECC P-256 rather than RSA-2048, and that is a user-visible choice.</b> The two are equally
/// standard as storage roots. Creating an RSA primary on a discrete TPM takes seconds — the key is
/// generated, not derived — and this runs on the unlock path, so it would show up as the application
/// hanging every time somebody opened their vault. The prototype this was built from used RSA and that
/// is exactly what it was changed for.
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// <c>NoDA</c> is set <em>here</em> and deliberately not on the sealed object. The parent has no
/// authValue to guess, so counting failures against it would only give an attacker a way to lock the
/// machine's TPM out by asking for something they were never going to get.
/// </para>
/// </remarks>
private static TpmPublic PrimaryTemplate => new(
TpmAlgId.Sha256,
ObjectAttr.Restricted | ObjectAttr.Decrypt | ObjectAttr.FixedTPM | ObjectAttr.FixedParent
| ObjectAttr.SensitiveDataOrigin | ObjectAttr.UserWithAuth | ObjectAttr.NoDA,
null,
new EccParms(
new SymDefObject(TpmAlgId.Aes, 128, TpmAlgId.Cfb),
new NullAsymScheme(),
EccCurve.TpmEccNistP256,
new NullKdfScheme()),
new EccPoint());
/// <summary>
/// The sealed object: bytes the TPM holds, released against an authValue the TPM checks.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// Keyedhash with a null scheme is TPM 2.0's "just keep these bytes" object. <c>UserWithAuth</c> is
/// what makes the authValue the thing that opens it, and the deliberate <em>absence</em> of
/// <c>NoDA</c> is what puts every wrong PIN on the dictionary-attack counter. Removing that one
/// attribute would leave a four-digit secret that could be guessed at full speed by anything holding
/// the blob and the machine, which is the whole of the protection this class offers.
/// </remarks>
private static TpmPublic SealedTemplate => new(
TpmAlgId.Sha256,
ObjectAttr.FixedTPM | ObjectAttr.FixedParent | ObjectAttr.UserWithAuth,
null,
new KeyedhashParms(new NullSchemeKeyedhash()),
new Tpm2bDigestKeyedhash());
/// <summary>Whether this machine has a TPM this process may use.</summary>
/// <remarks>
/// Probes by creating and flushing a primary rather than by looking for the device node, for the
/// reason <c>WindowsDeviceKeyStore.IsSupported</c> gives about its own provider: the node can be
/// present on a machine where the first real command then fails. Permissions are the common case here
/// and they fail at open; an owner hierarchy with an authValue set is the rarer one and fails at
/// CreatePrimary. Neither is a fault and both mean the same thing.
/// </remarks>
internal static bool IsSupported() => IsSupported(static () => new LinuxTpmDevice());
/// <inheritdoc cref="IsSupported()" />
internal static bool IsSupported(Func<Tpm2Device> openDevice)
{
ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(openDevice);
try
{
using var device = openDevice();
device.Connect();
var tpm = new Tpm2(device);
var primary = CreatePrimary(tpm);
tpm.FlushContext(primary);
return true;
}
catch (Exception exception) when (exception is not OutOfMemoryException)
{
// Every way this fails means the same thing to the caller: no device key here, so keep asking
// for the passphrase. A missing device node throws IOException, a device this user may not
// open throws UnauthorizedAccessException, and a TPM that refuses the command throws
// TpmException — and on a machine with no TPM at all the constructor itself may throw before
// any of that.
return false;
}
}
/// <inheritdoc />
public ValueTask<bool> IsAvailableAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken) =>
ValueTask.FromResult(IsSupported(openDevice));
/// <inheritdoc />
/// <remarks>
/// Asks for a PIN first and writes nothing if the user declines, which matters more here than the
/// symmetry suggests: <c>SaveAsync</c> is called as part of registering this machine, and a half-done
/// registration would leave a wrap on the server that nothing can open.
/// </remarks>
public async ValueTask SaveAsync(
ReadOnlyMemory<byte> devicePrivateKey,
CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
var pin = await askForPin(DevicePinPurpose.Choosing, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(pin))
{
throw new OperationCanceledException("No PIN was chosen, so no device key was stored.");
}
var key = devicePrivateKey.ToArray();
// Off the calling thread, because every command below blocks on the chip. Creating the primary
// alone is hundreds of milliseconds on real hardware, and this is called from the unlock path —
// which on the desktop head is the UI thread.
var packed = await Task.Run(() => Seal(pin, key), cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
paths.EnsureCreated();
await File.WriteAllBytesAsync(paths.DeviceKeyFile, packed, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
}
/// <summary>Seals the key into the TPM and answers with the blob to store.</summary>
private byte[] Seal(string pin, byte[] devicePrivateKey)
{
var auth = PinAuth(pin);
try
{
using var device = openDevice();
device.Connect();
var tpm = new Tpm2(device);
var primary = CreatePrimary(tpm);
try
{
var priv = tpm.Create(
primary,
new SensitiveCreate(auth, devicePrivateKey),
SealedTemplate,
null,
[],
out var pub,
out _,
out _,
out _);
return Pack(pub, priv);
}
finally
{
tpm.FlushContext(primary);
}
}
finally
{
CryptographicOperations.ZeroMemory(auth);
CryptographicOperations.ZeroMemory(devicePrivateKey);
}
}
/// <inheritdoc />
/// <remarks>
/// <para>
/// <b>One attempt per call, and a wrong PIN is not retried here.</b> Every wrong answer advances the
/// TPM's lockout counter, so a loop offering three tries would spend a third of the machine's budget
/// on one mistyped digit. Returning null lands on the passphrase, which always works; somebody who
/// wants to try the PIN again asks for a device unlock again, which is a deliberate act rather than a
/// loop.
/// </para>
/// <para>
/// <b>A locked-out TPM is deliberately indistinguishable from a wrong PIN.</b>
/// <see cref="IDeviceKeyStore.TryLoadAsync"/> asks for exactly that and the reasoning holds here: the
/// caller does the same thing in every case, and "your TPM is in lockout" describes the keystore
/// rather than telling somebody something they can act on — the answer is still to type the
/// passphrase.
/// </para>
/// </remarks>
public async ValueTask<byte[]?> TryLoadAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
if (!File.Exists(paths.DeviceKeyFile))
{
return null;
}
var stored = await File.ReadAllBytesAsync(paths.DeviceKeyFile, cancellationToken)
.ConfigureAwait(false);
if (!TryUnpack(stored, out var pub, out var priv))
{
return null;
}
// After the blob is known to be readable and before anything is asked of the user, because a
// prompt raised over a file this cannot use is a question with no useful answer.
var pin = await askForPin(DevicePinPurpose.Entering, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(pin))
{
return null;
}
return await Task.Run(() => Unseal(pin, pub, priv), cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
}
/// <summary>Asks the TPM to release the key, and answers null however it declines.</summary>
private byte[]? Unseal(string pin, TpmPublic pub, TpmPrivate priv)
{
var auth = PinAuth(pin);
try
{
using var device = openDevice();
device.Connect();
var tpm = new Tpm2(device);
var primary = CreatePrimary(tpm);
try
{
var loaded = tpm.Load(primary, priv, pub);
try
{
return tpm[auth].Unseal(loaded);
}
finally
{
tpm.FlushContext(loaded);
}
}
finally
{
tpm.FlushContext(primary);
}
}
catch (Exception exception) when (exception is not OutOfMemoryException)
{
// TpmException covers the wrong PIN and the lockout; the rest covers a TPM that has gone away
// between the availability check and now, which a suspend or a firmware update can do.
return null;
}
finally
{
CryptographicOperations.ZeroMemory(auth);
}
}
/// <inheritdoc />
/// <remarks>
/// Deleting the blob is the whole of it, and that is a property of sealing rather than an omission.
/// The object lives nowhere but in that file — it was never made persistent inside the TPM, see
/// <see cref="PrimaryTemplate"/> — so the bytes are unrecoverable the moment it is gone. There is no
/// TPM state to clean up and nothing left behind for a later install to trip over.
/// </remarks>
public ValueTask ForgetAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
if (File.Exists(paths.DeviceKeyFile))
{
File.Delete(paths.DeviceKeyFile);
}
return ValueTask.CompletedTask;
}
/// <summary>Derives the TPM authValue from the PIN as typed.</summary>
private static byte[] PinAuth(string pin) =>
SHA256.HashData(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes($"{PinLabel} {pin}"));
private static TpmHandle CreatePrimary(Tpm2 tpm) =>
tpm.CreatePrimary(
TpmRh.Owner,
new SensitiveCreate(),
PrimaryTemplate,
null,
[],
out _,
out _,
out _,
out _);
/// <summary>Puts the two halves of the sealed object in one file.</summary>
/// <remarks>
/// Both are needed to load it and neither is secret — the private half is encrypted to this TPM's
/// storage hierarchy, which is what makes the file useless anywhere else. Length-prefixed rather than
/// concatenated because their sizes vary with the TPM's algorithms, and magic-prefixed so that a file
/// left by another version, or by the Windows store on a dual-boot profile directory, is refused
/// rather than fed to the TPM as a malformed structure.
/// </remarks>
private static byte[] Pack(TpmPublic pub, TpmPrivate priv)
{
var publicPart = pub.GetTpmRepresentation();
var privatePart = priv.GetTpmRepresentation();
var packed = new byte[Magic.Length + 4 + publicPart.Length + 4 + privatePart.Length];
var at = Magic.Length;
Magic.CopyTo(packed.AsSpan());
BinaryPrimitives.WriteInt32BigEndian(packed.AsSpan(at), publicPart.Length);
at += 4;
publicPart.CopyTo(packed.AsSpan(at));
at += publicPart.Length;
BinaryPrimitives.WriteInt32BigEndian(packed.AsSpan(at), privatePart.Length);
at += 4;
privatePart.CopyTo(packed.AsSpan(at));
return packed;
}
/// <summary>Reads back what <see cref="Pack"/> wrote, or answers false.</summary>
private static bool TryUnpack(byte[] stored, out TpmPublic pub, out TpmPrivate priv)
{
pub = new TpmPublic();
priv = new TpmPrivate();
try
{
if (stored.Length < Magic.Length + 8 || !stored.AsSpan(0, Magic.Length).SequenceEqual(Magic))
{
return false;
}
var at = Magic.Length;
var publicLength = BinaryPrimitives.ReadInt32BigEndian(stored.AsSpan(at));
at += 4;
if (publicLength < 0 || at + publicLength + 4 > stored.Length)
{
return false;
}
var publicPart = stored.AsSpan(at, publicLength).ToArray();
at += publicLength;
var privateLength = BinaryPrimitives.ReadInt32BigEndian(stored.AsSpan(at));
at += 4;
if (privateLength < 0 || at + privateLength != stored.Length)
{
return false;
}
var privatePart = stored.AsSpan(at, privateLength).ToArray();
pub = Marshaller.FromTpmRepresentation<TpmPublic>(publicPart);
priv = Marshaller.FromTpmRepresentation<TpmPrivate>(privatePart);
return true;
}
catch (Exception exception) when (exception is not OutOfMemoryException)
{
// A blob that does not parse is a blob this machine cannot use, which is the same answer as no
// blob at all. Throwing here would mean a corrupted file stopped the application from starting.
return false;
}
}
}