cryptmount-setup(8) [debian man page]
CRYPTMOUNT-SETUP(8) User commands CRYPTMOUNT-SETUP(8) NAME
cryptmount-setup - setup a new encrypted filing system SYNOPSIS
cryptmount-setup DESCRIPTION
cryptmount-setup assists in the initial configuration of an encrypted filesystem, to be managed by cryptmount (8). If run by the superuser, cryptmount-setup will allow a basic encrypted filing system to be created within an ordinary file. The size, location, mount-point and ownership of the filesystem can be selected interactively. For more advanced options, please see the manual page for cryptmount (8) or cmtab (5) SEE ALSO
cmtab(5) cryptmount(8) COPYRIGHT NOTICE
cryptmount is Copyright 2005-2009 RW Penney and is supplied with NO WARRANTY. Licencing terms are as described in the file "COPYING" within the cryptmount source distribution. 4.3.1 2010-02-22 CRYPTMOUNT-SETUP(8)
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CRYPTMOUNT(8) User commands CRYPTMOUNT(8) NAME
cryptmount - mount/unmount/configure an encrypted filing system SYNOPSIS
cryptmount TARGET [TARGET ...] cryptmount --unmount TARGET [TARGET ...] cryptmount --change-password TARGET cryptmount --generate-key SIZE TARGET cryptmount --swapon TARGET cryptmount --swapoff TARGET DESCRIPTION
cryptmount allows an encrypted filing system to be mounted or unmounted, without requiring superuser privileges, and assists the superuser in creating new encrypted filesystems. After initial configuration of the filing system by the system administrator, the user needs only to provide the decryption password for that filing sytem in order for cryptmount to automatically configure device-mapper and loopback tar- gets before mounting the filing system. cryptmount was written in response to differences between the newer device-mapper infrastructure of the linux-2.6 kernel series, and the older cryptoloop infrastructure which allowed ordinary users access to encrypted filing systems directly through mount (8). OPTIONS
-a --all act on all available targets, e.g. for mounting all targets. -m --mount mount the specified target, configuring any required device-mapper or loopback devices. The user will be asked to supply a password to unlock the decryption key for the filing system. -u --unmount unmount the specified target, and deconfigure any underlying device-mapper or loopback devices. No password is required, although the operation will fail if the filing system is in use, or if a non-root user tries to unmount a filing system mounted by a differ- ent user. -l --list lists all available targets, including basic information about the filing system and mount point of each. -c --change-password change the password protecting the decryption key for a given filing system. -g --generate-key size setup a decryption key for a new filing system. size gives the length of the key in bytes. -e --reuse-key existing-target setup a decryption key for a new filing system, using an existing key from another filing system, for example to translate between different file-formats for storing a single key. This option is only available to the superuser. -f --config-fd num read configuration information about targets from file-descriptor num instead of the default configuration file. This option is only available to the superuser. -w --passwd-fd num read passwords from file-descriptor num instead of from the terminal, e.g. for using cryptmount within scripts or GUI wrappers. Each password is read once only, in contrast to terminal-based operation where new passwords would be requested twice for verifica- tion. -p --prepare prepare all the device-mapper and loopback devices needed to access a target, but do not mount. This is intended to allow the supe- ruser to install a filing system on an encrypted device. -r --release releases all device-mapper and loopback devices associated with a particular target. This option is only available to the superuser. -s --swapon enable the specified target for paging and swapping. This option is only available to the superuser. -x --swapoff disable the specified target for paging and swapping. This option is only available to the superuser. -k --key-managers list all the available formats for protecting the filesystem access keys. -n --safetynet attempts to close-down any mounted targets that should normally have been shutdown with --unmount or --swapoff. This option is only available to the superuser, and intended exclusively for use during shutdown/reboot of the operating system. -v --version show the version-number of the installed program. RETURN CODES
cryptmount returns zero on success. A non-zero value indicates a failure of some form, as follows: 1 unrecognized command-line option; 2 unrecognized filesystem target name; 3 failed to execute helper program; 100 insufficient privilege; 101 security failure in installation. EXAMPLE USAGE
In order to create a new encrypted filing system managed by cryptmount, you can use the supplied 'cryptmount-setup' program, which can be used by the superuser to interactively configure a basic setup. Alternatively, suppose that we wish to setup a new encrypted filing system, that will have a target-name of "opaque". If we have a free disk partition available, say /dev/hdb63, then we can use this directly to store the encrypted filing system. Alternatively, if we want to store the encrypted filing system within an ordinary file, we need to create space using a recipe such as: dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/opaque.fs bs=1M count=512 and then replace all occurences of '/dev/hdb63' in the following with '/home/opaque.fs'. (/dev/urandom can be used in place of /dev/zero, debatably for extra security, but is rather slower.) First, we need to add an entry in /etc/cryptmount/cmtab, which describes the encryption that will be used to protect the filesystem itself and the access key, as follows: opaque { dev=/dev/hdb63 dir=/home/crypt fstype=ext2 mountoptions=defaults cipher=twofish keyfile=/etc/cryptmount/opaque.key keyformat=builtin } Here, we will be using the "twofish" algorithm to encrypt the filing system itself, with the built-in key-manager being used to protect the decryption key (to be stored in /etc/cryptmount/opaque.key). In order to generate a secret decryption key (in /etc/cryptmount/opaque.key) that will be used to encrypt the filing system itself, we can execute, as root: cryptmount --generate-key 32 opaque This will generate a 32-byte (256-bit) key, which is known to be supported by the Twofish cipher algorithm, and store it in encrypted form after asking the system administrator for a password. If we now execute, as root: cryptmount --prepare opaque we will then be asked for the password that we used when setting up /etc/cryptmount/opaque.key, which will enable cryptmount to setup a device-mapper target (/dev/mapper/opaque). (If you receive an error message of the form device-mapper ioctl cmd 9 failed: Invalid argument , this may mean that you have chosen a key-size that isn't supported by your chosen cipher algorithm. You can get some information about suitable key-sizes by checking the output from "more /proc/crypto", and looking at the "min keysize" and "max keysize" fields.) We can now use standard tools to create the actual filing system on /dev/mapper/opaque: mke2fs /dev/mapper/opaque (It may be advisable, after the filesystem is first mounted, to check that the permissions of the top-level directory created by mke2fs are appropriate for your needs.) After executing cryptmount --release opaque mkdir /home/crypt the encrypted filing system is ready for use. Ordinary users can mount it by typing cryptmount -m opaque or cryptmount opaque and unmount it using cryptmount -u opaque cryptmount keeps a record of which user mounted each filesystem in order to provide a locking mechanism to ensure that only the same user (or root) can unmount it. PASSWORD CHANGING
After a filesystem has been in use for a while, one may want to change the access password. For an example target called "opaque", this can be performed by executing: cryptmount --change-password opaque After successfully supplying the old password, one can then choose a new password which will be used to re-encrypt the access key for the filesystem. (The filesystem itself is not altered or re-encrypted.) LUKS ENCRYPTED FILESYSTEMS
cryptmount can be used to provide easy access to encrypted filesystems compatible with the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) capabilities of the cryptsetup application. In order to access an existing LUKS partition, an entry needs to be created within /etc/cryptmount/cmtab. For example, if the hard-disk partition /dev/hdb62 is used to contain a LUKS encrypted ext3 filesystem, an entry of the form: LUKS { keyformat=luks dev=/dev/hdb62 keyfile=/dev/hdb62 dir=/home/luks-dir fstype=ext3 } would allow this to be mounted via cryptmount beneath /home/luks-dir by executing cryptmount LUKS cryptmount will also allow any user that knows one of the access-passwords to change their password via cryptmount --change-password LUKS cryptmount also provides basic support for creating new LUKS encrypted filesystems, which can be placed within ordinary files as well as disk partitions, via the '--generate-key' recipe shown above. However, to exploit the full range of functionality within LUKS, such as for adding multiple passwords, one needs to use cryptsetup It is strongly recommended that you do not attempt to use LUKS support in combination with cryptmount's features for storing multiple encrypted filesystems within a single disk partition or an ordinary file. This is because of assumptions within the cryptsetup-luks design that the LUKS key-material is always stored at the beginning of the disk partition. FILES
/etc/cryptmount/cmtab - main configuration file /etc/cryptmount/cmstatus - record of mounted filesystems SEE ALSO
cmtab(5), cryptmount-setup(8), cryptsetup(8), mount(8) BUGS
The author would be grateful for any constructive suggestions and bug-reports, via <rwpenney@users.sourceforge.net> COPYRIGHT NOTICE
cryptmount is Copyright 2005-2011 RW Penney and is supplied with NO WARRANTY. Licencing terms are as described in the file "COPYING" within the cryptmount source distribution. 4.3.1 2011-05-03 CRYPTMOUNT(8)