Update 11.0->11.1: /etc/cryptotab lost

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Dear all,

I used to have an encrypted partition, setup via YaST, which was automatically mounted at boot time after a password prompt. Yesterday, I upgraded via installation DVD from OpenSuSE 11.0 to 11.1. Now there is no password prompt anymore, and the partition does not get mounted. I tried to mount it manually, but there is neither a “/etc/cryptotab” nor a “/etc/crypttab” on my system anymore. How can that be?

The partition appears to be still present (/dev/sda3), but I just don’t know how to mount it. All I know from this partition is that I created it by using the “encrypt file system” checkbox in YaST/System/Partitioner either under 11.0 or 10.3.

Does anybody knows how to mount it? Any help would be very much appreciated…

Thanks
Kai

2

I am going to tag along on this thread since the solution is probably the same for both of us.

The difference in my case is I have an external hard drive where I backed up everything before doing a new install of opensuse 11.1. I was expecting to be able to copy all of my home directory stuff back including my .evolution backup to my home directory from the encrypted external hard drive. However, during the installation process I was not offered the option of having the partition encrypted without formatting it. Kinda negates the backing up thing if I was to do that. :\ As a matter of fact, I had to uncheck the box to mount the partition to finish the installation.

3

I solved my problem. Maybe this will work for you.

In my case, I had the crypttab file in /etc. If you do not have one make it by doing the following.

issue the command

gnomesu gedit

after your enter your root password in the new document that you have open paste in

cr_sda9         /dev/disk/by-id/ata-Maxtor_6L300S0_L621098G-part9 none       none
cr_sdf1	/dev/disk/by-id/ieee1394-00101003001168ff:00042c:0000-part1 none	none

You only have to use one line, but you will have to edit it to match your particular situation. If you run the disk partititioner under yast, you can drill down to find your partition to get the disk id.

In your case the line might look like

cr_sda3         /dev/disk/by-id/what-ever-your-disk-id-is none       none

In my case, after I added this line to my crypttab file and ran the disk partitioner. I had to select “Format Partition” to check the “Encrypt file system” checkbox. Then I select “Do not format partition” to not format it and the checkbox stayed check. When I clicked “Next” and “finish” i had not errors and the partition was mounted. Oddly, there was no change in my fstab file. Since my home directory is also encrypted. I expected to find a line similar to it. I will let you know what happens when I reboot.

4

Thank you, the YaST-Partitioner trick worked for me!

  1. Select “Format partition”
  2. Check “Encrypt file system”
  3. Select “Do not format partition”

Now the partition was mounted, and even the password prompt at boot time came up again.

This appears to be a strange quirk in the YaST GUI…

Best
Kai