Arch Linux Installer Preparing FIDO2 Support For Handling Disk Encryption

The Arch Linux installer "Archinstall" that makes it simple to quickly and easily get this popular distribution installed has prepared a new release candidate where they are introducing FIDO2 support.

Archinstall 2.4.3rc1 released this morning and one of the most prominent new features with this version is FIDO2 support for unlocking disk encryption.

This FIDO2 protocol support with the Arch Linux installer is for adding an HSM menu entry to allow pairing a FIDO2-compliant device like early Yubikeys to be used to unlock an encrypted disk at boot time. This merged support makes it easy to get an encrypted Arch Linux install working nicely with FIDO2 devices but there may be some initial shortcomings like FIDO2 devices with PIN requirements likely being broken.

YubiKey

Archinstall 2.4.3-rc1 in addition to the FIDO2 support has various new APIs and options, using the Esc key will properly back out without modifying changes while Ctrl+C will now clear the current option, and a variety of general improvements. There are also a number of bug fixes with this updated Arch Linux installer, including around the encrypted partition functionality.

More details on these changes coming to Archinstall 2.4.3 via GitHub. Once in released form this updated Archinstall should appear in the next monthly Arch Linux ISO for easy Arch installations.