"Please enter passphrase for disk..." has returned

Ask Fedora
1

After upgrading to Fedora 42, I noticed that the text “Please enter passphrase for disk…” has returned on the Plymouth screen at the prompt for the disk encryption password. Is this intentional?

2

Yes it is intentional, it’s due to the updated Plymouth boot splash system that uses the EFI framebuffer before even the GPU becomes available during boot

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3

Thank you very much for clarifying this.
Fedora was the only distro that offered that screen in the cleanest and most minimal way possible. And it was very good like that.The text is ugly, both because it appears only in English (even if the system language is different) and because it shows the very long and incomprehensible name of the encrypted disk.
In short, it is not really a suitable text for a GUI.

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4

If someone wants to make their voice heard, these are the referral links:

On bugzilla you can also open a new issue since the one has already been closed.

And no, plymouth and cryptsetup have nothing to do with it.

5

As suggested on Red Hat Bugzilla, a configuration file could be set for the deleting the text on the Plymouth/LUKS screen.

Here is a step-by-step summary to ask for confirmation of someone more experienced than me than the correctness of all the steps:

  1. sudo touch /etc/plymouth/plymouth-populate-initrd.conf

  2. sudo nano /etc/plymouth/plymouth-populate-initrd.conf

  3. Insert the following content into the configuration file just created…

PLYMOUTH_DISABLE_LABEL_FREETYPE=1

  1. Save the file (Ctrl+O) and close it (Ctrl+X)

  2. Change the plymouth-populate-initrd script to let it read the new configuration variable…
    sudo nano /usr/libexec/plymouth/plymouth-populate-initrd

  3. Add the code to read the configuration file at the beginning of the script, after the first lines of comment…

# Source configuration file if it exists
if [ -f "/etc/plymouth/plymouth-populate-initrd.conf" ]; then
    . /etc/plymouth/plymouth-populate-initrd.conf
fi
  1. Find the corresponding code block and change the condition that includes label-freedype.so…
if [ -f "${PLYMOUTH_PLUGIN_PATH}/label-freetype.so" ] && [ "$PLYMOUTH_DISABLE_LABEL_FREETYPE" != "1" ]; then
     inst ${PLYMOUTH_PLUGIN_PATH}/label-freetype.so $INITRDDIR
     # The label-freetype plugin expects it at this location
     mkdir -p $INITRDDIR/usr/share/fonts
     [ ! -z "$DEFAULT_FONT" ] && ln -s "$DEFAULT_FONT" $INITRDDIR/usr/share/fonts/Plymouth.ttf
     [ ! -z "$DEFAULT_MONOSPACE_FONT" ] && ln -s "$DEFAULT_MONOSPACE_FONT" $INITRDDIR/usr/share/fonts/Plymouth-monospace.ttf
fi

  1. Regenerate the initramfs…
    sudo dracut --force

  2. Reboot

This solution should completely disable the label-freedype.so module, which is responsible for viewing the text on the plymouth screen. After applying these changes, you should no longer see the text during the unlocking prompt of the encrypted disc. But I need to have confirmation of this.
Furtheremore, are these changes updates-resistant?

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6

This fix worked for me. The “Please enter passphrase for disk …” text no longer appears. Thanks!

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7

Thank you for your feedback. Let’s see if it persists when plymouth is updated.

8

I have confirmed that the change does not withstand updates. I’ve tried writing a post-transaction hook to overwrite the plymouth-populated-initrd file every time the Plymouth package is updated via DNF (but I don’t know if it’s correct). However, you would also need a script that does the same thing when the package is updated via PackageKit. If anyone wants to help, they are welcome.

9

If someone is able to propose a merge-request upstream, he is also welcome :slightly_smiling_face:

The need to have that text in the screen derives mainly from enterprise side. So it could be kept deactivated by default and activate it only if you need it.

10

Could you provide solution for atomic desktops? On kinoite for example this file is read-only
/usr/libexec/plymouth/plymouth-populate-initrd

11

That’s why I don’t use immutable distro.
I couldn’t tell you if there is a specific solution. However, I can tell you that they are working upstream to improve the appearance of that screen. So, in a future version of plymouth, this patch may no longer be necessary.

1 Like
12

Workaround for atomic spins (Silverblue/Kinoite etc)

sudo rpm-ostree kargs --append='plymouth.use-simpledrm=0'
systemctl reboot

I will leave this for others

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