[Solved] Encrypt home option greyed out and auto selected.

[RytronII]

Hi.

I installed Linux Mint 17 MATE 64-bit. The section where you put in your name, username and password; then below there are options to check auto login and encrypt home dir. Those latter options were greyed out for me (it already checked encrypt home folder).

How can I check if my home folder is encrypted properly?

BTW, I previously had encrypted my home folder when installing LM 16. My separate home folder remains with my old config files.

[snipertyler]

If it was already setup with encryption it probably doesn't need it again.
Run --> df

Does something like ~/.private mounted on /home/$USER
show up?

I recently switched from the encfs (when you choose encrypt /home dir) style to a full LUKS encrypted /home, so I can't remember 100% what it looks like. But if the above pops up, you're probably set.
Another tip is to live boot and try to mount the drive. if it comes up with a readme file and ./mount_enc_fs or something - you're good.

As a fyi, I reccomend moving the old config files from ~/.* as they could impair whatever packages got upgraded.

[RytronII]

If it was already setup with encryption it probably doesn't need it again.
Run --> df

Does something like ~/.private mounted on /home/$USER
show up?

I recently switched from the encfs (when you choose encrypt /home dir) style to a full LUKS encrypted /home, so I can't remember 100% what it looks like. But if the above pops up, you're probably set.
Another tip is to live boot and try to mount the drive. if it comes up with a readme file and ./mount_enc_fs or something - you're good.

As a fyi, I reccomend moving the old config files from ~/.* as they could impair whatever packages got upgraded.

Hi snipertyler.

Yes, it says this on last line of list:
/home/XXX/.Private 1890047928 408102436 1385913596 23% /home/XXX

[RytronII]

It must have seen my old .ecryptfs dir and this meant I had no choice but to opt for home dir encryption again.

[snipertyler]

It must have seen my old .ecryptfs dir and this meant I had no choice but to opt for home dir encryption again.

You always have a choice.
Backup the /home partition whilst decrypted - format the partition and reinstall to it.

I did this to switch from that method to LUKS

[RytronII]

It must have seen my old .ecryptfs dir and this meant I had no choice but to opt for home dir encryption again.

You always have a choice.
Backup the /home partition whilst decrypted - format the partition and reinstall to it.

I did this to switch from that method to LUKS

Hi snipertyler.

Yes, that's always an option.

BTW, what would be the difference between using one of these options [img] over checking the encrypt home folder box?

[snipertyler]

For LVM -> http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/whatislvm.html

I'm not 100% sure about the encryption as I have not utilized the Ubuntu one. However, I did use the Manjaro one with identical text and it involved full disk encryption (encrypts everything but /boot)
This requires typing in a password to unlock the disk and then proceeds like a normal OS (requiring another password to login)
This is similar to my LUKS encryption of /home, .encryptfs however does not require multiple passwords. If this is more or less secure depends on whom you ask.

[RytronII]

For LVM -> http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/whatislvm.html

I'm not 100% sure about the encryption as I have not utilized the Ubuntu one. However, I did use the Manjaro one with identical text and it involved full disk encryption (encrypts everything but /boot)
This requires typing in a password to unlock the disk and then proceeds like a normal OS (requiring another password to login)
This is similar to my LUKS encryption of /home, .encryptfs however does not require multiple passwords. If this is more or less secure depends on whom you ask.

I might install a few distros in VirtualBox and experiment with the various encryption options. Cheers.

[RytronII]

I am currently installing a test LM 17 Xfce 64-bit in VirtualBox.

I noticed that it was not possible to just check the box 'Encrypt the new Linux Mint installation for security.' without the LVM option box being auto-checked as well. The LVM box could be chosen on it's own though.

It would probably be over the top but what would happen if someone chose both 'Encrypt the new Linux Mint installation for security.' and checked the box to encrypt home folder.

[RytronII]

For LVM -> http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/whatislvm.html

I'm not 100% sure about the encryption as I have not utilized the Ubuntu one. However, I did use the Manjaro one with identical text and it involved full disk encryption (encrypts everything but /boot)
This requires typing in a password to unlock the disk and then proceeds like a normal OS (requiring another password to login)
This is similar to my LUKS encryption of /home, .encryptfs however does not require multiple passwords. If this is more or less secure depends on whom you ask.

I guess you'd maintain similar security if you used autologin and the full disk encryptio option as you would with full disk encryptio and normal password login?

Which encryption method would have less of an overhead? Would it significantly slow down a 6 year old laptop 80GB HDD, 1GB RAM vs no encryption?

Are those 2 installation encrpytion methods safe from someone enter Linux recovery mode?

Edit: "On September 2013, Phoronix published a benchmark comparing performance between LUKS and eCryptfs. They used Ubuntu 13.10 (latest available at that time) and they obtained better results encrypting the whole disk using LUKS than encrypting just the user home using eCryptfs." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Unified_Key_Setup.