Error correction with aes-looback / cryptoloop?

[William Park]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 09:49:10PM -0500, Mike Oliver wrote:
> I have a laptop on which I would like to put my
> $HOME directory on an encrypted partition, in case
> someone were to steal it in an airport or something.
> I've been experimenting with using an encrypted
> loop device using the cryptoloop module and AES128
> encryption.
> 
> It seems to work fine, but I'm not so happy about the
> thought that a one-bit HDD error could make me lose the
> entire partition.  I was wondering if anyone knows whether
> any of the available encryption options use error
> correction, so as to greatly mitigate this possibility?
> I would happily accept a 10% file size increase for
> this purpose.

I found that 'dm-crypt' and 'EncFS' are two easiest methods.  'dm-crypt'
does block encryption (ie. disk partition), and 'EncFS' does files
encryption (ie. directory tree).

Since you want to encrypt the entire "home" partition, try 'dm-crypt'.
It sits at the same level as raid.  You need 'cryptsetup' package, which
automatically loads all the necessary kernel modules for you.  Usage
would go something like
    
    cryptsetup create home /dev/hda4
    mke2fs -j /dev/mapper/home
    mount /dev/mapper/home /home
    umount /home
    cryptsetup remove home

-- 
William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org>, Toronto, Canada
BashDiff: Super Bash shell
http://freshmeat.net/projects/bashdiff/
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists