Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Florian Philipp <lists@×××××××××××.net>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] hard drive encryption
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:51:02
Message-Id: 4F5F7AA4.7030501@binarywings.net
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] hard drive encryption by Michael Mol
1 Am 13.03.2012 17:26, schrieb Michael Mol:
2 > On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@×××××××××××.net> wrote:
3 >> Am 13.03.2012 12:55, schrieb Valmor de Almeida:
4 >>> On 03/11/2012 02:29 PM, Florian Philipp wrote:
5 >>>> Am 11.03.2012 16:38, schrieb Valmor de Almeida:
6 >>>>>
7 >>>>> Hello,
8 >>>>>
9 >>>>> I have not looked at encryption before and find myself in a situation
10 >>>>> that I have to encrypt my hard drive. I keep /, /boot, and swap outside
11 >>>>> LVM, everything else is under LVM. I think all I need to do is to
12 >>>>> encrypt /home which is under LVM. I use reiserfs.
13 >>>>>
14 >>>>> I would appreciate suggestion and pointers on what it is practical and
15 >>>>> simple in order to accomplish this task with a minimum of downtime.
16 >>>>>
17 >>>>> Thanks,
18 >>>>>
19 >>>>> --
20 >>>>> Valmor
21 >>>>>
22 >>>>
23 >>>>
24 >>>> Is it acceptable for you to have a commandline prompt for the password
25 >>>> when booting? In that case you can use LUKS with the /etc/init.d/dmcrypt
26 >>>
27 >>> I think so.
28 >>>
29 >>>> init script. /etc/conf.d/dmcrypt should contain some examples. As you
30 >>>> want to encrypt an LVM volume, the lvm init script needs to be started
31 >>>> before this. As I see it, there is no strict dependency between those
32 >>>> two scripts. You can add this by adding this line to /etc/rc.conf:
33 >>>> rc_dmcrypt_after="lvm"
34 >>>>
35 >>>> For creating a LUKS-encrypted volume, look at
36 >>>> http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/DM-Crypt
37 >>>
38 >>> Currently looking at this.
39 >>>
40 >>>>
41 >>>> You won't need most of what is written there; just section 9,
42 >>>> "Administering LUKS" and the kernel config in section 2, "Assumptions".
43 >>>>
44 >>>> Concerning downtime, I'm not aware of any solution that avoids copying
45 >>>> the data over to the new volume. If downtime is absolutely critical, ask
46 >>>> and we can work something out that minimizes the time.
47 >>>>
48 >>>> Regards,
49 >>>> Florian Philipp
50 >>>>
51 >>>
52 >>> Since I am planning to encrypt only home/ under LVM control, what kind
53 >>> of overhead should I expect?
54 >>>
55 >>> Thanks,
56 >>>
57 >>
58 >> What do you mean with overhead? CPU utilization? In that case the
59 >> overhead is minimal, especially when you run a 64-bit kernel with the
60 >> optimized AES kernel module.
61 >
62 > Rough guess: Latency. With encryption, you can't DMA disk data
63 > directly into a process's address space, because you need the decrypt
64 > hop.
65 >
66
67 Good call. Wouldn't have thought of that.
68
69 > Try running bonnie++ on encrypted vs non-encrypted volumes. (Or not; I
70 > doubt you have the time and materials to do a good, meaningful set of
71 > time trials)
72 >
73
74 Yeah, that sounds like something for which you need a very dull winter
75 day. Besides, I've already lost a poorly cooled HDD on a benchmark.
76
77 Regards,
78 Florian Philipp

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Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] hard drive encryption Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk>
Re: [gentoo-user] hard drive encryption Michael Mol <mikemol@×××××.com>