[WBEL-users] Anybody using an encrypted file system on Whitebox?

[Kirby Bohling]

On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 04:45:18PM -0500, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
> I've been searching for a way to encrypt a directory with some private 
> files, and came across cfs.  The only problem is that the code looks like 
> it hasn't been updated in three years.
> 
> I'm hoping for something relatively easy that doesn't require kernel 
> patching.  CFS and CryptFS look like they've been abandoned.  I'm looking 
> into losetup now, though I've heard that it's kinda slow.
> 
> Anybody actually doing this now?


I've looked into it at various points.  In the end, I either had to
patch my utilities (util-linux), or I had to patch my kernel.

The standard util-linux doesn't have support for AES, and the stock
Redhat kernel doesn't have support for DES (at least not that I've
found).

losetup doesn't understand AES as an encryption type.  It's
relatively straightforward to patch the utilities.  It's a pain in
the butt, because you lose your ability to just use YUM to keep in
sync.  At one point I had tracked down why, they aren't being
applied to the older series of util-linux.  That might change with a
2.6 kernel.

Google quickly comes up with this:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/long_list.cgi?buglist=78550

You might have luck chasing down the threads from there.  There are
plenty of howto's on how to do it out there.  Loops sorta slow, but
it's probably the encryption.  Mount an ISO image loopback and see
if that's slow.  The encryption is slow, because by it's very nature
it's a complex calculation (granted DES runs well on anything that
has a barrel shifter in hardware that gets used).

	Thanks,
		Kirby

> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Ben
> 
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