Stuck: Mint 18.3 Dual Boot Full Encryption

[artrieu]

Hi

I'm a bit new to Linux but here what I got so far:

I have a 500Gig NTFS with Win10 running, made an empty 120gig partition where I wanted to install mint, and use the full hdd encryption option. (Want to keep Win10 for DualBoot)

Not sure what to do next (please see screenshot):
I have sda1 and sda2 which are windows.
sda4 is the dedicated linux partition.
I can mark it, click on add and choose 'physical volume for encription', but then im stuck...
format the partition i cant click, neither mount point. sda4 changes to crypto something but i cant click on new partition table or on install now. then when i click again on change, the installer crashes saying:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/kde_components/PartMan.py", line 453, in on_edit_clicked
self.partman_edit_dialog(devpart, partition)
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/kde_components/PartMan.py", line 367, in partman_edit_dialog
self.ctrlr.dbfilter.edit_partition(devpart, **edits)
File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/plugins/ubi-partman.py", line 3289, in edit_partition
assert self.current_question == 'partman/choose_partition'
AssertionError/quote]

I found some guides but they're either old or not about dual boot as far as i can understand.

Can someone please help?

[WharfRat]

artrieu,

Hello artrieu

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Linux Mint forum

The Mint installer is not equipped to setup an encrypted partition.

The encrypted option uses LVM and LUKS on the entire HDD - not a partition.

Since this is your first post I'm assuming this is your first linux installation attempt.

Your best option is to do a simple straightforward installation.

Note that a swap partition is also recommended for 18.3.

Good luck

[artrieu]

Hi

Well it's not my first time. I tried to install over 20 years ago when i was a kid/teenagera some suse redhat distro but my hardware mainly the graphic card wasn't compatible lol
Had Ubuntu once on dualboot but never actually used it.
Last week I did install Mint on an old Dell XPS 13 but it does not have enough RAM for my use, so I went straight to my power desktop.
In no way I want to lose my Windows partition, but I'd love to have the Linux partition fully encrypted.
Do you know a way/tutorial that shows me how to do this with mint 18.X?
Is it at all possible ?

Thanks

[WharfRat]

This explains the procedure for Arch Linux, but the instructions would pertain to any Linux distro.

[artrieu]

Hi, thats amazing thank you.
Im a bit too noob to understand what scenario best describes my case:
One NTFS windows hdd where i created a partition from which i want to be fully encrypted and only with linux, meaning when i choose to boot linux i need a pwd during boot, and then in addition the user password to login.
Which of those cases from the list fits best my case?

#LUKS on a partition
#LVM on LUKS
#LUKS on LVM
#LUKS on software RAID
#Plain dm-crypt
#Encrypted boot partition (GRUB)
#Btrfs subvolumes with swap

Thanks!

[WharfRat]

You initially said you were trying to encrypt a partition so it would be LUKS on a partition.

The encrypted installation menu option would be LVM on LUKS

[artrieu]

Thanks for that.
I think I'm too noob to understand what the guide is talking about. If I can't do it with the Mint install wizard, or have a spoonfeeding guide, I guess I won't be able to do it

In windows i took my c: SSD drive and shrunk it by 150gb in order to have a seperate new and empty partition. Booting mint from USB I can see this partition in the install wizard called sda4.

It looks likle the sda4 I currently have should be what's called /dev/sda2 in the guide under LUKS on a partition.

So what I need to do is to boot mint from USB, open terminal and enter:

Code: Select all

cryptsetup -y -v luksFormat --type luks2 /dev/sda4
cryptsetup open /dev/sda4 cryptroot
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/cryptroot
mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt

Apparently I need to repeat this for /home but it's not written how exactly.
Next I'll need to prepare the boot partition. In the example from you r link they give the following example:

Code: Select all

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
# mkdir /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

In my case, sda1 is a windows partition so what exactly should I do? Should I go back to windows and split my sda4 in multiple new partitions so that I get a sda5 for swap a sda6 for boot or so?
In addition, I'd like to have the boot partiiton on a usb-thumbdrive, how can this be done?

Not sure I'm i got it right so far, and didn;t quiet understand the next steps from here.
The next step is mounting devices but it seems to me that this is what i should already have done (mount /dev/sda4 ....., no?)

The next steps are configuring mkinitcpio & configuring the boot loader, which is hopefully just entering exactly what's written on the guide:

Code: Select all

HOOKS=(base udev autodetect keyboard keymap consolefont modconf block encrypt filesystems fsck)

And

Code: Select all

cryptdevice=UUID=device-UUID:cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot

Lets assume I'm correct, what then? Can I then go to the install wizard and just install the system?

Thanks and sorry for all those noob questions

[WharfRat]

You don't need to do anything with the hooks for mint so you can skip that part.

I've never done this so I'm not exactly sure of the steps required.

All I can tell you is before you start the installer you will have to open the LUKS conatiner in the terminal to have access to /dev/mapper/cryptroot

That would be your target for installation.

Also you need the boot partition because grub cannot access an encrypted partition.

So during installation set the mountpoint for boot to the partition you setup and /dev/mapper/cryptroot for /.

[artrieu]

Hi, I tried but didnt got far I just dont understand how to do those things and dont have a guide/tut.

I tried this earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etzJAG_H5F8
It worked great and the system let me arrange the discs as explained, it worked great. I just would prefer to use Mint.

So I deleted all of that and wanted to repeat it with mint, but the manual partitioning via the wizard crashes or just doesnt let me.

The difference: in Debian you create the encrypted volume and then you manage the volume and create from that root & swap. But with mint i choose the empty space, choose encrypted drive and then im stuck. does someone know how this works?

thanks