void-linux / void-linux/void-packages

dracut + plymouth on Void: GUI LUKS password prompt missing

Open
#57,954 4 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

bug needs-testing
Dominant language
Shell
Stars
3.4k
Forks
2.8k
Avg merge
2d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
299

Description

Is this a new report?

Yes

System Info

Void with kernel 6.17.8_1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC -- x86_64

Package(s) Affected

plymouth (and dracut)

Does a report exist for this bug with the project's home (upstream) and/or another distro?

No response

Expected behaviour

Display a graphical "plymouth" bootsplash with PW field in order to decrypt LUKS partition prior to continuing boot.

Actual behaviour

bootsplash (including animated ones) can display ... but without any password field nor even any "blind" ability to enter a password to decrypt a LUKS partition.

Computer simply freezes at bootsplash.

Steps to reproduce
  1. install plymouth & plymouth-data
  2. select graphical theme such as fade-in
  3. "wire" everything up -- i.e. dracut -f THEN make sure /etc/default/grub references the encrypted partition such as GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash rd.debug rd.loglevel=7 rd.udev.log_priority=3 rd.luks.name=4b644f98-6fd5-4fe7-9ee2-e709f54042ef=luks-home rd.driver.pre=amdgpu" THEN grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg THEN reboot

Splash displays, but without PW field.

Full Context:
I have a system with LUKS-encrypted /home and am trying to establish a boot splash using plymouth.

No matter what I do, a LUKS pw prompt simply can NOT be shown in plymouth OTHER than when using "details" theme (which is a pure text-mode plymouth theme)

I have switched among "standard" plymouth themes which definitely allow for LUKS pw entry on other platforms such as Fedora.

On Void, these same-named themes simply lock up the computer at an endless looping display of the graphical theme (such as spinner or fade-in).

These themes do NOT even display a PW field (even though that functionality is included in the many themes I have tried).

In other words, the animated presentation appears, but gets stuck and no password can be entered to continue (even "blindly typing the PW does not work!)

Likely reason for the fault:

Plymouth theming engine's "ask-for-password" feature probably does not get invoked

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the issue with the reported plymouth theme, dracut -f, and the /etc/default/grub kernel arguments, then reboot and compare the graphical theme with the details theme. Inspect the dracut and plymouth boot setup involved in invoking the LUKS password prompt. Done means a graphical theme displays a password field and accepts the LUKS password so boot continues.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
linux
Domain
operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.