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Singularity OS Singularity OS

Your PIN, password, and encryption

Sinty OS deliberately has one credential: a PIN. There is no separate login password. This page explains where that leaves the “password”, and how your data is actually protected.

There is no password, on purpose

Section titled “There is no password, on purpose”

On a traditional Linux system you have a Unix password used for login, sudo, and more. Sinty OS does not: your account is created with no password at all, and the PIN takes its place for logging in. So if you are looking for “where the password is”, the answer is that there isn’t one. The PIN is the single thing you set, and the single thing you enter.

This is a security choice, not a shortcut. One credential means one thing to protect and one thing to lose, and it lets that credential do double duty as your encryption key rather than sitting beside a separate disk-encryption passphrase.

How your data is encrypted

Section titled “How your data is encrypted”

Your files are encrypted with file-based encryption (the same family of technology Android uses), not a single whole-disk passphrase:

  • Your home and your data are encrypted. The read-only system root is not encrypted; it does not need to be, because it is verified instead (see Hardware security and the TPM).
  • The encryption key is wrapped by two things at once: your PIN, and the machine’s hardware security. Both are needed to unlock, which is why the same data will not simply decrypt on another machine even with the right PIN.

What the PIN unlocks

Section titled “What the PIN unlocks”

The one PIN is used, never duplicated, for three things:

  1. Unlocking your files at login. Entering your PIN releases the key that decrypts your home.
  2. Confirming destructive actions. A wipe or a reinstall from recovery asks for the PIN, so a thief or a stray click cannot erase or take over the machine.
  3. Unlocking protected settings. The machine’s locked-down state is gated by the same PIN.

If you forget the PIN

Section titled “If you forget the PIN”

Because the PIN is your decryption key, no one can reset it for you without destroying your data. The only way back in is your recovery code, the one-time string shown at first boot. Keep it safe. Without both the PIN and the recovery code, encrypted data is gone for good, which is the point: your data is genuinely yours.