Mounting an encrypted partition
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Hi guys, I have encrypted a home partition (SuSE 10.1) and when my laptop boots I get the prompt to enter my password if I do that in a certain amount of time everything is OK and I am using the right partition but if not I can still log on but my files are going somewhere else. I encrypted the partition during the install but I mistyped the password I thought YaST is going to fail when creating the user directories etc. but it did not... it actually work so I thought I must have typed the right password, so I reboot (after the install) type the password and try to login I get an error message that KDE cannot be initialized so I copied the .profile skel file and everything worked. Now my problem is: if I do not pay attention to the prompt and type nothing (it just proceeds after a certain amount of time) I can log in fine but my files are going somewhere non encrypted. I am having a problem understanding why there always appear to be a /home directory even though I have specified the enc partition to be mounted that way....what is going on?? Can I specify that I do not want the system to start without the password being typed and the partition loaded? Has anyone managed to create an encrypted partition on a usb disk, I have some files I wish to keep encrypted any ideas on what is the best approach? Thanks in advance. George
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On Sunday, 3 September 2006 22:12, George Stoianov wrote:
Now my problem is: if I do not pay attention to the prompt and type nothing (it just proceeds after a certain amount of time) I can log in fine but my files are going somewhere non encrypted. I am having a problem understanding why there always appear to be a /home directory even though I have specified the enc partition to be mounted that way....what is going on??
well, your system do have your /home directory wherever you have mounted or not your partition. in case you do not mount it, system writes data just on the root partition where the /home directory is located. in case you mount a partition, data are stored on this partition. please read about partitions and mounting in linux for more. you can also mount an encrypted partition later after booting byy (as root): /etc/rc.d/boot.crypto restart regards, -- Marek Chlopek
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sun, 3 Sep 2006, Marek Chlopek wrote:
On Sunday, 3 September 2006 22:12, George Stoianov wrote:
well, your system do have your /home directory wherever you have mounted or not your partition. in case you do not mount it, system writes data just on the root partition where the /home directory is located. in case you mount a partition, data are stored on this partition. please read about partitions and mounting in linux for more.
you can also mount an encrypted partition later after booting byy (as root): /etc/rc.d/boot.crypto restart
There is another method that defines them directly in /etc/fstab. For instance: /biggy/crypta.bck.file /biggy/crypta.bck ext3 noauto,acl,user_xattr,loop=/dev/loop1,encryption=twofish256,phash=sha512,itercountk=100 0 0 To avoid login in without the encrypted home being mounted, I would perhaps modify the rcxdm script so that it checks the status of the partition, for example, by finding some encrypted file before proceeding. - -- Saludos Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFE/M6QtTMYHG2NR9URAgctAJ4s+VUjRQet6MjGVPuD25rWNb/RjQCfXSM1 OLV7d+C94opcDk8wJ252Nzo= =oWwn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (3)
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Carlos E. R.
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George Stoianov
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Marek Chlopek