I have RHel 5 on my laptop
I have GRUB, Anaconda
Probably this manages encrypted partition
I have downloaded Fedora 5 noarch.
However I have not changed Kernel
Some how at the time of booting I was not asked for passphrase
Accordingly although I am able to use my laptop, the major portion of my partition is locked.
Previously I could able to recover that by command chng_passphrase and it use to get restored. However this time when I typed this command following messsage was exhibited

[judge@localhost ~]$ chng_passphrase
Can't open device: /dev/homevg/homevol

WARNING!
========
This is the last keyslot. Device will become unusable after purging this key.

Are you sure? (Type uppercase yes):

I typed "no' for number of occasions as I smelled that there is problem.
I must also say that at the time of booting mounting local file system is failed. It says that dev/mapper does not exits. I am breathing in very less disk space, which does not allow me to store even 700 MB on my hard disk. Needless to mention that this LUKS passphrase.

Note I have made certain changes in some files so as to allow the filesystem to install VLC. It is equally true that without redhat support I have updated filesystem of course with forgerpms. I thought I should mention this as I believe that if changes are made to kernel consqeuent changes will have to be made to GRUB config or like.
I have downloaded cryptsetup 2.0 but being newbie I am short of knowledge. Urge to help is solicited. Thanks in advance.

Well, either you need the passphrase, or you're stuck. At some point, you had to have entered one, RHEL doesn't just encrypt a partition without being told to.

I would strongly suggest you contact RedHat support.

In addition to above I have to supply following information

[root@localhost judge]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 9.5G 8.3G 741M 92% /
/dev/sda1 99M 15M 80M 16% /boot
tmpfs 248M 0 248M 0% /dev/shm

If this is the situation then I am supposed to have at least 80 GB hard disk. However, it seems that I have only 10 GB with me. What must have occurred. Please help me. Surely I shall contact Red Hat Support. Will you please help me to know exact nature of problem and probable chances of recovery.

Is this the same you were requisitioning. please confirm.

[root@localhost judge]# df -l
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 9920624 8618772 789784 92% /
/dev/sda1 101086 14899 80968 16% /boot
tmpfs 253588 0 253588 0% /dev/shm


After posting this thread I had gone through the manual supplied. It mentions that there are limited key slots. Probably that may one more area of attention. I already confessed that I am short of technical know-how. However it is not that I was/is not knowing my passphrase. Still I know. But I cannot change it to free my space.

output of fdisk -l and cat /proc/partitions ?
You know the passphrase of the encrypted partition, right ?

btw. is there a reason why you created an lvm for your /home ??

8 0 78150744 sda
8 1 104391 sda1
8 2 10241437 sda2
8 3 1052257 sda3
8 4 1 sda4
8 5 66750043 sda5
253 0 56524800 dm-0
253 2 1048576 dm-2

I have attached external hard disk of 250 GB. fdisk -l
[root@localhost judge]# fdisk -l
bash: fdisk: command not found

This is system is partitioned as was given by the organization. For two times this occurred. I formatted the system. I was under impression that the moment it is formatted it will automatically will restore position ante. But every time I am loosing my space. This I came to know now. Hope that I can be worked out.

Is this the same which you were requisitioning. Please do confirm

[root@localhost judge]# df -l
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 9920624 8618772 789784 92% /
/dev/sda1 101086 14899 80968 16% /boot
tmpfs 253588 0 253588 0% /dev/shm

I have finally formatted my system. Now this problem is no more for me.
It is closed.