HOWTO: Recover files from encrypted ecryptfs home directory

[SMG]

Moderator note: Numerous old posts requesting help with this tutorial have been removed. Forum rules indicate, "Don't add support questions to tutorials please."

If you are having problems with any of the steps, please create a new topic and ask for help in the new topic.

[PandaHugMonster]

Good day. I have just registered to add some useful info for the people struggling with the same issues. The main instructions-answer above is great, but
I had weird decryption problems, and wanted to spare some time not resolving them.

I have found easier way to do that work (just a single command tbh).

Get into the folder of your old drive "/home/.ecryptfs" and then run "ecryptfs-recover-private" command pointing to your ".Private"

Code: Select all

cd /[YOUR_MOUNTED_OLD_DRIVE]/home/.ecryptfs/[YOUR_USER_NAME]/.ecryptfs;
ecryptfs-recover-private .Private;

Answer to all questions and enter your LOGIN password of that previous installation. Output would be something like that:

Code: Select all

INFO: Found [.Private].
Try to recover this directory? [Y/n]: 
INFO: Found your wrapped-passphrase
Do you know your LOGIN passphrase? [Y/n] 
INFO: Enter your LOGIN passphrase...
Passphrase:
Inserted auth tok with sig [****] into the user session keyring
INFO: Success!  Private data mounted at [/tmp/ecryptfs.****].

[rene]

Thanks for adding that, very useful.