Re: [gentoo-user] Using USB key as real $HOME and possible encryption?

[Walter Dnes]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 09:51:18PM -0400, Rick "Zero_Chaos" Farina wrote

> I suggest with LUKS.  Also I suggest using ext4 and disabling the
> journal (mkfs.ext4 -O ^has_journal).

  I didn't know you could do that, but what's the point?  I'm not trying
to be argumentative, but isn't ext4 without a journal a glorified ext2?
I believe that an ext2 driver can read ext4, if none of the fancy ext4
options have been invoked.  And ext4 can read ext2.

  Another couple of things I didn't realize.  According to
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dm-crypt I have to build in support for the
crypt target in the kernel.  It also suggests
<*> SHA224 and SHA256 digest algorithm

  Any comments on their strength?  I'm not worried about the NSA or CSIS
as much as opportunistic criminals.

  One other item in passing.  The "make menuconfig" help text for
CONFIG_DM_CRYPT points to http://www.saout.de/misc/dm-crypt/ but that
site says, and I quote...

> Note: This page is horribly out of date.
> You can find the current pages for the dm-crypt project (the Linux
> kernel part) here: http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/DMCrypt
> and the project page for the command line tool cryptsetup (with Linux
> Unified Key Setup - LUKS) here: http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/.

  Who should be notified about this?  I don't think kernel help text
(except for Gentoo Sources patches) is handled by Gentoo developers.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications