What: security/evm Date: March 2011 Contact: Mimi Zohar Description: EVM protects a file's security extended attributes(xattrs) against integrity attacks. The initial method maintains an HMAC-sha1 value across the extended attributes, storing the value as the extended attribute 'security.evm'. EVM supports two classes of security.evm. The first is an HMAC-sha1 generated locally with a trusted/encrypted key stored in the Kernel Key Retention System. The second is a digital signature generated either locally or remotely using an asymmetric key. These keys are loaded onto root's keyring using keyctl, and EVM is then enabled by echoing a value to /evm: 1: enable HMAC validation and creation 2: enable digital signature validation 3: enable HMAC and digital signature validation and HMAC creation Further writes will be blocked if HMAC support is enabled or if bit 32 is set: echo 0x80000002 >/evm will enable digital signature validation and block further writes to /evm. Until this is done, EVM can not create or validate the 'security.evm' xattr, but returns INTEGRITY_UNKNOWN. Loading keys and signaling EVM should be done as early as possible. Normally this is done in the initramfs, which has already been measured as part of the trusted boot. For more information on creating and loading existing trusted/encrypted keys, refer to: Documentation/security/keys/trusted-encrypted.rst. Both dracut (via 97masterkey and 98integrity) and systemd (via core/ima-setup) have support for loading keys at boot time.