Huh? I was just randomly searching for something like this yesterday.
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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I hadn't heard of Dropbear until I started researching this... cool project. That seems to be the ticket if you're wanting manual intervention to unlock the disk. If you want automatic unlock via another server on the network, sounds like Clevis may be the thing.
I think you were told MANY times in the last thread...that's not all Clevis is used for. You misunderstood the tool.
I am not a smart person and it wasn't the right tool for my job so I didn't research it further once that was established. Maybe if somebody told me one more time it'd stick.
EDIT : In case anyone is curious : https://github.com/latchset/clevis
Did you run into any issues setting up dropbear or did you get it working on the first try?
I'm attempting to follow the same guide that you linked to, the only difference being that I haven't configured a static IP (I don't think this step is required). Every other instruction, I believe I've followed to the letter (for the new version).
Where I'm stuck is after copying the client's public key to the server, updating initrd, rebooting, waiting for the disk encryption prompt, and issuing ping <server-ip> on the client (replacing <server-ip> and <port-number> with the actual IP and port number):
myuser@client:~$ ping <server-ip>
PING <server-ip> (<server-ip>) 56(84) bytes of data.
From <server-ip> icmp_seq=10 Destination Host Unreachable
From <server-ip> icmp_seq=11 Destination Host Unreachable
Unsurprisingly, I'm unable to ssh in from the client:
myuser@client:~$ ssh -i ~/.ssh/dropbear -p <port-number> -o "HostKeyAlgorithms ssh-rsa" root@<server-ip>
ssh: connect to host <server-ip> port <port-number>: No route to host
Since the server is a laptop, I can physically enter the decryption key on the server itself, and then go back to the client and ping the server successfully.
I have not attempted the steps described on the Debian wiki (networking setup or converting the public keys to PEM). Should I add IP=:::::eth0:dhcp to initramfs.conf? Any pointers on what I should check?
EDIT: I'm attempting all of this over wifi, in case that matters (I have a feeling it matters, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do differently).
EDIT 2: I found a guide from 2017 by Marc Fargas (Enable Wireless networks in Debian Initramfs). Also found this thread from 2021 on StackExchange (How can I enable wireless for a dropbear-initramfs), wherein somebody links to this GH gist (Sample files to enable wireless on Debian initramfs ). I'll attempt to follow these guides and report back.
Hey bud - for the most part it worked great following the guide. The static IP was very important because dropbear is active before DNS (at least in my config) so you have to configure it in a way that you can definitively find it - and a static IP was the way. I just gave it an easy to remember one at 10.0.0.3 since I already have important things at *.1 and *.2.
Another thing that tripped me up originally is that you need to SSH as the root user. That doesn't seem to be your problem since you're not getting there over the network, but FYI for when you fix it.
Destination Host Unreachable
That's definitely a network problem. Maybe fire it up and then check your router for active IP leases and see which one it took?
I’m attempting all of this over wifi, in case that matters
It probably shouldn't matter in any super meaningful way, but I do have mine hardwired with cat6 so that could definitely be a difference.
Definitely let us know how it goes - you're adding to the knowledge pool and that's awesome.
EDIT : Make sure you can find it on the network first, then work backwards from there. At the moment, it seems like you aren't getting network connectivity.