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# Trusted Platform Module/1.2

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< Trusted Platform Module

TPM 1.2 uses the "TrouSerS" TSS (TCG software stack) by IBM, which is packaged as trousersAUR (tcsd) and tpm-toolsAUR (userspace). All software access the TPM through the tcsd daemon.

## Drivers

TPM drivers are natively supported in modern kernels, but might need to be loaded:

    # modprobe tpm

Depending on your chipset, you might also need to load one of the following:

    # modprobe -a tpm_{atmel,infineon,nsc,tis,crb}

## Usage

TPM 1.2 is managed by `tcsd`, a userspace daemon that manages Trusted Computing resources and should be (according to the TSS spec) the only portal to the TPM device driver. `tcsd` is part of the trousersAUR package, which was created and released by IBM, and can be configured via `/etc/tcsd.conf`.

To start tcsd and watch the output, run:

    # tcsd -f

or simply start and enable `tcsd.service`.

Once `tcsd` is running you might also want to install tpm-toolsAUR which provides many of the command line tools for managing the TPM.

Some other tools of interest:

- tpmmanager — A Qt front-end to tpm-tools

  https://github.com/Rohde-Schwarz/TPMManager || tpmmanagerAUR

- opencryptoki — A PKCS#11 implementation for Linux. It includes drivers and libraries to enable IBM cryptographic hardware as well as a software token for testing.

  https://sourceforge.net/projects/opencryptoki || opencryptokiAUR

## Basics

Start off by getting basic version info:

    $ tpm_version

and running a selftest:

    $ tpm_selftest -l info

    TPM Test Results: 00000000 ...
    tpm_selftest succeeded

## Securing SSH keys

There are several methods to use TPM to secure keys, but here we show a simple method based on simple-tpm-pk11-gitAUR.

First, create a new directory and generate the key:

    $ mkdir ~/.simple-tpm-pk11
    $ stpm-keygen -o ~/.simple-tpm-pk11/my.key

Point the configuration to the key:

    ~/.simple-tpm-pk11/config

    key my.key

Now configure SSH to use the right PKCS11 provider:

    ~/.ssh/config

    Host *
        PKCS11Provider /usr/lib/libsimple-tpm-pk11.so

It is now possible to generate keys with the PKCS11 provider:

    $ ssh-keygen -D /usr/lib/libsimple-tpm-pk11.so

Note This method currently does not allow for multiple keys to be generated and used.

## Troubleshooting

### tcsd.service failed to start

After installing trousersAUR, the `tcsd.service` service may not start correctly due to permission issues.[1] It is possible to fix this either by rebooting or by reloading the udev rules that is included in the trousersAUR package.

## See also

- Protecting systems with the TPM
- Embedded Security Subsystem on Thinkwiki
- TPM Fundamentals (PDF)
- Using a TPM

Categories:

- Security
- Hardware

Trusted Platform Module/1.2
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