Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

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mikemoceri

Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by mikemoceri »

Hello,

So, my motherboard went kaput last week, and I have vital legal documents on an encrypted drive. After attaching said drive to an external bay, I appear to be able to decrypt it fine with sudo cryptsetup -v luksOpen /dev/sdc3 external, leading to the following output:

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Enter passphrase for /dev/sdc3: 
Key slot 0 unlocked.
Command successful.
The output for ls /dev/mapper/ is as follows:

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control  external  mint--vg-root  mint--vg-swap_1
However, when I run sudo mount /dev/mapper/external /media/external/, I get the following error:

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mount: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'
I'm pretty sure I have LVM installed, since my root drive uses LVM. Why am I getting this error?

-Mike
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Laurent85
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Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by Laurent85 »

mikemoceri wrote: However, when I run sudo mount /dev/mapper/external /media/external/, I get the following error:

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mount: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'
Root filesystem is mint--vg-root, copy/paste command :

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sudo mount /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root /mnt
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mikemoceri

Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by mikemoceri »

I'm pretty sure that the mint--vg-root in the output of "ls /dev/mapper/" is referring to my root partition, since I'm running all of this on mint. Note that I ran "sudo cryptsetup -v luksOpen /dev/sdc3 external" previously, so I think that the one I should be mounting is "external."
Laurent85
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Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by Laurent85 »

So why trying to mount /dev/mapper/external ? You wrote
mikemoceri wrote: However, when I run sudo mount /dev/mapper/external /media/external/ , I get the following error:

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mount: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'
I'm pretty sure I have LVM installed, since my root drive uses LVM. Why am I getting this error?
Image
mikemoceri

Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by mikemoceri »

I thought that's how you're supposed to mount LVM volumes. Is there something I'm missing here?
mikemoceri

Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by mikemoceri »

To clarify: I'm trying to recover my encrypted home partition from ANOTHER mint system which went kaput. My current PC (the one that works) is ALSO running Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca. The hard drive I'm trying to recover from is labeled sdc, and I believe the correct partition is sdc3 (Luks can decrypt it just fine with my password).
Laurent85
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Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by Laurent85 »

Ok perhaps you missed my previous post with correct mount command. Unlock drive as you have already done then copy/paste command :

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sudo mount /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root /mnt
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Derek_S
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Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by Derek_S »

mikemoceri wrote:I thought that's how you're supposed to mount LVM volumes. Is there something I'm missing here?
Hello mikemoceri - I know this thread is a bit long in the tooth and I'm sorry for not coming across it sooner.

Here's the procedure I used on my own system, so I can vouch for the fact that it does work. Terminal commands as follows:

1.) sudo apt-get install cryptsetup lvm2 ### These two packages should already be installed, do this just to make sure

2.) sudo modprobe dm-crypt ### Verify the kernel module dm-crypt is active

3.) sudo modprobe dm-mod ### Verify the kernel module dm-mod is active

4.) sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdc3 MYDATA ### Unlock the LUKS partition and label it MYDATA; this assumes sdc3 is the encrypted partition

5.) sudo vgscan ### Scan for volume groups; you should find volume group "mint-vg" in the output

6.) sudo vgchange -ay mint-vg ### Make the volume group mint-vg active as well as all of the logical volumes it contains

7.) sudo lvscan ### Scan for logical volumes in the volume group; you should find the logical volume "/dev/mint-vg/root" in the output

8.) sudo mkdir /media/root ### Create a new directory /media/root in order to mount the logical volume /dev/mint-vg/root

9.) sudo mount /dev/mint-vg/root /media/root ### Mount the logical volume /dev/mint-vg/root as /media/root

At this point you should see an icon for /media/root appear on the Desktop. You will be able to copy all of your data files from /media/root over to your new system or to a pre-formatted USB flash drive if you're running from a live CD session. When you're done, unmount as follows:

10.) sudo umount /media/root ### Unmount /media/root

11.) sudo cryptsetup luksClose MYDATA ### Lock the encrypted partition; I got an error message here, but it really doesn't matter since you've already saved your data and will be shutting down
"When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself." - Tecumseh
karamjeet

Re: Question re: Mounting Encrypted LVM Partition

Post by karamjeet »

Hello @Derek_S
Thanks for posting this answer, i have been following this answer to mount my encryption partition due to initrafs error of Busybox 1.21.1.
Upto 8th point number from your commands its success for me

mint@mint ~ $ sudo apt-get install cryptsetup lvm2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
cryptsetup is already the newest version.
lvm2 is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
mint@mint ~ $ sudo modprobe dm-crypt
mint@mint ~ $ sudo modprobe dm-mod
mint@mint ~ $ sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sd
sda sda1 sda2 sda3 sda5 sdb sdb1 sdc
mint@mint ~ $ sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda5 MYDATA
Enter passphrase for /dev/sda5:
mint@mint ~ $ sudo vgscan
Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
Found volume group "mint-vg" using metadata type lvm2
mint@mint ~ $ sudo vgchange -ay mint-vg
2 logical volume(s) in volume group "mint-vg" now active
mint@mint ~ $ sudo lvscan
ACTIVE '/dev/mint-vg/root' [927.32 GiB] inherit
ACTIVE '/dev/mint-vg/swap_1' [3.90 GiB] inherit
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mkdir /media/root


but when i ran command #9 there is problem like i have shown as follows:


mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/mint-vg/root /media/root
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
Please let me know for further info if required.
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