Remotely enter encryption key?

Posted by Jason Swett on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Jason Swett
Published on 2010-11-09T13:56:36Z Indexed on 2012/03/24 17:31 UTC
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linux

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encryption

This might be a really dumb question but here goes, anyway.

I just bought a couple servers. I already installed Ubuntu with encrypted LVM on one and I'm planning on doing the same with the other. This means that every time I boot up each of these machines, I have to enter the passphrase. And I'll have to do this every morning because I'll power each machine off each night for security reasons.

Here's the problem: I don't have monitors or keyboards for these servers. It seems to me I have two options:

Somehow enter the passphrase remotely
Buy a KVM switch

I doubt #1 is an option but I want to make sure it's not before I buy a KVM. Is it possible to enter the passphrase remotely? AND is it a good idea?

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