Gentoo Archives: gentoo-security

From: Spider <spider@g.o>
To: gentoo-security@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-security] Encrypted filesystem
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 09:23:09
Message-Id: 20040426112249.4d00176b.spider@gentoo.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-security] Encrypted filesystem by Bart Van Kerkhove
1 begin quote
2 On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 10:23:53 +0200 (CEST)
3 "Bart Van Kerkhove" <overige.vk@×××××××.be> wrote:
4
5 > Howdy,
6 >
7 > There is allot of information on the forums about how to create/use
8 > encrypted filesystems, but what if something goes wrong?
9 >
10 > As far as i know is all that it takes to make an encrypted file
11 > unreadable is one faulty bit. What happens if the filesystem gets
12 > corrupted or the filesystem is unmounted in an unsafe way? Will all
13 > data be lost or only the affected (open) files?
14
15 To note here is that when you talk about encrypted filesystems, You are
16 in fact talking about encrypted block devices.
17 The filesystem resides inside the encrypted block, so any damage on the
18 filesystem level, will only damage files in the filesystem, it will not
19 auto-corrupt the whole filesystem. (unless you get severe damage to the
20 filesystem, and that'd be just as bad with as without the encryption)
21
22 True, encrypted devices are more sensitive to hardware errors, things
23 like a loose cable, a faulty sector, will corrupt a block (Most
24 encryptions are block ciphers based on 512 or larger blocks of data)
25 which will then corrupt a bit more data than otherwise.
26
27 However, in practice this is less likely to be an issue, since if you
28 care enough to encrypt your partitions, You already care enough to make
29 regular backups in encrypted format, right? ;-)
30
31
32 //Spider
33
34
35
36 --
37 begin .signature
38 Tortured users / Laughing in pain
39 See Microsoft KB Article Q265230 for more information.
40 end

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-security] Encrypted filesystem Venkat Manakkal <venkat@××××××××××.com>