Encrypted Jumpdrives And Opensuse 10.3 - So Easy

For those that have not tried it..creating an encrypted jumpdrive with Opensuse 10.3 is simple..just go into the partitioner and format the jumpdrive..specifying that you want to encrypt it and away you go....when you plug the jumpdrive in on Opensuse 10.3 in kde or gnome it will prompt you for the password and then mount it. If you need to be able to access the jumpdrive from your OWN windows pc's you can install http://www.freeotfe.org and it will allow you to mount the LUKS encrypted drives under windows.


Now with all that being said...whats the best filesystem to use on your jumpdrive? If you are looking for compatability then encrypting and still using FAT makes sense since you can use it under both linux and windows....the default is ext3....but maybe you don't want to use "journaling" filesystems on flash media..maybe ext2 is a better choice for a "linux only flashdrive".


Comments welcome.

Oh..and here's something to think about.. XP currently has a limitation that prevents it from recognizing more than one partition on jumpdrives so you can't do the common sense thing which is to create a small fat partition with the freeotfe software on it to mount the 2nd encrypted partition....and you have no need to do this under linux since it will auto mount it without an issue.

From my experience:

Reiserfs is a good choice, as is probably ext3. ext2 is not good.

I am not sure about the choice between FAT16 and FAT32.

The first partiton shall be FAT in order the stick to work in Windows and Mac.

From my experience:

Reiserfs is a good choice, as is probably ext3. ext2 is not good.

I am not sure about the choice between FAT16 and FAT32.

The first partiton shall be FAT in order the stick to work in Windows and Mac.
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I wish to point out that using a journaling filesystem such as both ext3 and reiser use results in alot more read/writes being done to the flash media than probably is good for it.

You CAN create your first partition as a fat only non encrypted one which both windows and linux can use but if you do so you will not be able to see the 2nd partition under windows EVER....xp can't mount the 2nd partition. If your 1st partition is a fat encrypted luks partition you can use the windows software I mentioned to mount it under windows...(the usual issues that you have to have admin rights on the pc running windows applies..this means you won't be mounting your encrypted jumpdrives at the local coffee shop or library unless they are running linux/macs.)