Forja – Remote Docker Builders on AWS
Ephemeral EC2 builders with mTLS beats GitHub Actions for cost control.
Unattended disk decryption over mTLS
mTLS + XOR key splitting beats dropbear SSH for remote FDE unlock.
Sysadmins managing remote VPS with full disk encryption
dropbear · cryptsetup · Clevis
This is the threat model:
- Internal network is trusted, nodes are not. However, a compromised network unlock server won't collude with a network attacker.
- Attacker has full access to the public network.
- Attacker has eventual access to the disk and can recover any deleted file.
Any full disk encryption unlocking scheme of a remote machine without a TPM, e.g. SSH-ing into a dropbear initramfs, is vulnerable to the same attacker: someone who can read your unencrypted /boot partition and sit on your network. Against dropbear, they extract the SSH host key from the initramfs, impersonate your server, and capture the passphrase you type.
This protocol doesn't strive to be stronger than that, it accepts the same threat model. An attacker with disk access + network access within the TTL window can steal the ephemeral TLS cert + key from /boot, connect to the server, and retrieve Na. The protocol just removes the human from the loop while being no worse than typing a password over SSH.
I'm running this on my pair of VPSs, so if anyone finds a hole inside the threat model please let me know! I don't run anything critical but would rather not get hacked by playing with homebrew protocols. This wasn't vibe coded, so you'd be arguing with my ideas and not an LLM.
Ephemeral EC2 builders with mTLS beats GitHub Actions for cost control.
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Ephemeral tunnels for AI agents beat SSH key hell—no standing credentials, just Ctrl+C to revoke.
Multi-target OS verification in one command beats setting up CI YAML.
Outbound-only mTLS tunnels beat Teleport for zero-inbound-port server access.