OpenSUSE Expanding Encryption Options For Its Installer

While Ubuntu developers are busy adding experimental ZFS support to their installer, the SUSE developers working on their YaST installer are working on offering better security options for their platform by beefing up the encryption capabilities at install-time.

YaST has like most Linux distributions out there offered basic encryption options at install-time if wanting to deploy the Linux distribution to an encrypted LVM. With openSUSE Leap 15.2 (and SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP2) as well as openSUSE Tumbleweed, they are adding more advanced encryption options to complement the functionality provided already for years.

Among the advanced encryption options to be offered include supporting swap encryption with a random key (re-encrypting the swap device on each boot with a randomly generated password), swap encryption using protected AES keys, and more pervasive encryption of data volumes. Some of these SUSE/openSUSE encryption improvements are focused on their IBM s390 support.

SUSE is also exploring adding other encryption options -- including general support for LUKS2 replacing LUKS1. More details on their latest YaST encryption work via the openSUSE blog.