Hello,
I am looking for something like Ubuntu does (or claims to do
): encrypt the home folder so that, once done, you can even forget that it ever was encrypted.
I have had a quick look to encfs, and to the KDE “right click menu”; but, when dealing with folders, it seems that they pack them into a single file and then encrypts it (if I have correctly understood).
So, what is the way of encrypting the home folder (and subfolders) as Ubuntu does? (and so that you can completely forget afterwards)
Thank you very much in advance.
On 2010-12-23 02:36, alleluia20 wrote:
> So, what is the way of encrypting the home folder (and subfolders) as
> Ubuntu does? (and so that you can completely forget afterwards)
YaST.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
You’d have to set up a new /home-partition and use the option to mount it via dm-crypt / LUKS. An already existing /home partition can not be encrypted.
encfs is a very fine approach, but not adequate for partitions that have to be mounted at boot.
Hi. I had a question on this also. I have 300+ users on a single computer for a conference center in a building. Each has their own home folders that were created when the users were set up. However, everyone can see everyone else’s files/folders if they look in the file manager. I also see in YAST’s user and group manager, for each user, there’s a checkbox that says “Use encrypted home directory”. Does that make it so others wouldn’t be able to view their files? And if so, how can I do that in bulk? lol
Or is there a different way to do this altogether?
On 2011-03-04 00:06, grayceworks wrote:
>
> Hi. I had a question on this also. I have 300+ users on a single
> computer for a conference center in a building. Each has their own home
> folders that were created when the users were set up. However, everyone
> can see everyone else’s files/folders if they look in the file manager.
> I also see in YAST’s user and group manager, for each user, there’s a
> checkbox that says “Use encrypted home directory”. Does that make it so
> others wouldn’t be able to view their files? And if so, how can I do
> that in bulk? lol
Encryption is not a solution for that, because it is only encrypted when
the users are not logged in. Once a user enters his keyphrase, his home is
readable.
No, what you need is changing the home directory permissions, so that only
the owner has access. And this is easy to do now, but you will also have to
change the mask.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
Oh, so it seems that #4 gave the answer to my original question (starting post of the thread). Can it be applied to an existing home directory, i.e., if I check such box in Yast, will my existing files become encrypted?
Also, why did #3 say that my original request was not possible? Are we maybe speaking about different things? To clarify things, my goal is just to protect my data just in case my laptop is stolen.
Thank you very much in advance.
You will need to use encryption to protect your files if your laptop is stolen.
Chapter 11. Encrypting Partitions and Files
@robin_listas is refering to filesystem security.
For example
-rwxrw-r-- 1 user1 users 4341 Jul 17 2010 foo
user1 can read, write and execute the file foo
Anyone in the users group can read and write to the file foo
Anyone on the system can read the file foo.
HTH,
Hiatt
On 2011-03-06 03:06, alleluia20 wrote:
>
> Oh, so it seems that #4 gave the answer to my original question
> (starting post of the thread).
I told you that in the #2 post.
> Can it be applied to an existing home
> directory, i.e., if I check such box in Yast, will my existing files
> become encrypted?
I have never tried, but my guess is “no”.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)