ecryptfs and password

[Gregory Hosler]

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On 04/25/2011 01:01 PM, Larry Brower wrote:
> On 04/24/2011 11:58 PM, Gregory Hosler wrote:
> 
>> alternately, you can setup /etc/crypttab so that the password is not entered
>> manually.
> 
>> All the best,
> 
>> -Greg
> 
> 
> 
> Would this not then defeat the purpose of encrypting the partition ? :)

depends.

putting the passphrase into /etc/crypttab does make it readily available (which
reduces the effectiveness of encrypting to begin with).

However ... crypttab has allowance of putting the passphrase into a file. By
doing so, and then chown root:root combined with chmod 400, only the root user
has availability of the passphrase. This allows the partition to be persistently
mounted at boot time w/o directly compromising the passphrase.

Should someone crack the root account, you probably have more serious problems
than worrying about the encrypted password...

:-)

All the best,

- -Greg

- -- 
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Please also check the log file at "/dev/null" for additional information.
                (from /var/log/Xorg.setup.log)

| Greg Hosler                                   ghosler at redhat.com    |
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