Tails

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2014-12-12 08:54:55

• Priority changed from Normal to Low

I don’t think we’ll be working on this any time soon, so downgrading priority. Next step for anyone who wants to implement that would be to come up with goals and a design that takes into account the limits currently implemented in Tails Installer, Persistence assistant (and maybe others) to avoid trusting the internal hard drive.

#3 Updated by BitingBird 2015-01-02 00:14:38

• Status changed from New to Confirmed

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2015-01-02 09:49:53

• Subject changed from Add hard drive installation to Support installing on internal hard drives
• Category set to Installation
• Type of work changed from User interface design to Research

#5 Updated by BitingBird 2015-08-25 12:23:39

• Status changed from Confirmed to Rejected

Not the usecase we want to support, that would be a different project in fact -> rejecting

#8 Updated by intrigeri 2017-03-29 11:51:08

• Description updated

#9 Updated by intrigeri 2017-03-29 12:24:50

• Subject changed from Support installing on internal hard drives to Support running Tails from internal hard drives
• Status changed from Rejected to Confirmed

I’m regularly hearing about people who dedicate a computer to Tails and wish to install Tails on internal storage. Reasons to do so, that I’m aware of:

• they use Tails as their primary OS;
• their regular hardware is poorly supported by Tails;
• they need to use Tails at the same time as software that’s only available on proprietary operating systems;
• they want to run Tails on a smaller, lighter machine that they can carry around and get better physical security guarantees from.

Currently, these people have to run Tails off an external storage medium, which has a few drawbacks, including:

• external storage devices are generally slower, and with less storage capacity, than internal ones
• using an external boot medium opens the door to using the same Tails USB stick on less trusted computers (which somewhat defeats the use case of using Tails for one’s “secure machine”)
• a protuding external boot device can lead to accidental emergency shutdown and data loss.

Now, supporting this usecase is not a trivial project:

• in terms of UX for installation:
  • shall we expose internal drives in Tails Installer by default? or only after having toggled some checkbox? or display an additional warning before proceeding with the installation, if an internal drive was selected?
  • can this use case be supported in the Installation Assistant without making it significantly harder to follow or to maintain?
• in terms of implementation, what’s required is mostly the same as Feature #6397:
  • either Tails Installer needs to remove live-media=removable from the kernel command line, or Feature #7475 must be implemented
  • live-persist and the persistence assistant might need to be adjusted to look for / create / delete persistent volumes on internal storage, if Tails was started from there
  • One sanity check in Tails Upgrader must be adjusted or removed.
  • Anything else?

Now that the goals, design and challenges have been clarified, I’m reopening this ticket: IMO it’s clearly desirable to support this, and the only remaining question is: how important is it to us? We can answer this more easily once we’ve defined our personas, so for now I’ll stick to Low priority, i.e. we think it would be nice, be nobody on our team is committed to work on it any time soon.

#10 Updated by intrigeri 2017-03-29 12:25:04

• related to Feature #6397: Support booting from devices exposed as non-removable added

#11 Updated by intrigeri 2017-03-29 12:25:54

• related to Feature #11162: Create personas to visualize our user base added

#12 Updated by Anonymous 2018-01-18 17:58:44

• related to deleted (Feature #11162: Create personas to visualize our user base)

#13 Updated by Anonymous 2018-08-18 12:50:39

• related to Feature #15742: Test running Tails from an external hard disk added