Hi,

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on a 2TB drive and encrypted the home directory.

Shortly I couldn't login any more, so to recover the encrypted directory.the 2TB drive has been installed as a second drive in another Ubuntu system.

I navigated to the encrypted home directory and in the folder /home/adrian/ found the files:

/cache
/Access-Your-private-Data.desktop
/README.txt
/.ecryptfs
/.private
/.ecryptfs/adrian/.ecryptfs
/auto-mount
/auto-umount
/Private.mnt
/Private.sig
/wrapped-passphrase
/.wrapped-passphrase.recorded
/.Private/
/ Access-Your-private-Data-Desktop
/ README.txt

Access-Your-private-Data.desktop file contains:

[Desktop Entry]
_Name=Access Your Private Data
_GenericName=Access Your Private Data
Exec=/usr/bin/ecryptfs-mount-private
Terminal=true
Type=Application
Categories=System;Security;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=ecryptfs-utils


README.txt file contains:

THIS DIRECTORY HAS BEEN UNMOUNTED TO PROTECT YOUR DATA.

From the graphical desktop, click on:
"Access Your Private Data"

or

From the command line, run:
ecryptfs-mount-private



I opened a terminal and fired some commands:

1. fdisk command:


adi@adi-1:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for adi:

Disk /dev/sdb: 1.84 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD20EARS-00M
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00080dae

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 1945403391 1945401344 927.7G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 1945405438 1953523711 8118274 3.9G 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 1945405440 1953523711 8118272 3.9G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.


2. sudo ecryptfs-recover-private command launched from the 2TB drive:


adi@adi-1:/media/adi/d2bc773c-93e3-43e2-b1bc-e2d2430030cb/home$ sudo ecryptfs-recover-private
INFO: Searching for encrypted private directories (this might take a while)...
find: ‘/run/user/1000/gvfs’: Permission denied
adi@adi-1:/media/adi/d2bc773c-93e3-43e2-b1bc-e2d2430030cb/home$


3. sudo ecryptfs-mount-private command launched from the 2TB drive:


adi@adi-1:/media/adi/d2bc773c-93e3-43e2-b1bc-e2d2430030cb/home$ sudo ecryptfs-mount-private
[sudo] password for adi:
ERROR: Encrypted private directory is not setup properly
adi@adi-1:/media/adi/d2bc773c-93e3-43e2-b1bc-e2d2430030cb/home$


Apparently there is a permission issue.

Could you let me know what commands to use and how to fix the permission issue.

Thanks,

Andrew

Try it asYou don't need to be cd'd into it IIRC.

Hi syg00,

thanks for your help.

Tried the command line you provided and got another permission issues:

adi@adi-1:~$ sudo ecryptfs-recover-private /media/adi/d2bc773c-93e3-43e2-b1bc-e2d2430030cb/home/adrian/.Private
INFO: Searching for encrypted private directories (this might take a while)...
find: ‘/run/user/1000/gvfs’: Permission denied
find: ‘/run/user/1001/doc’: Permission denied
find: ‘/run/user/1001/gvfs’: Permission denied

I googled for these issues and all the explanations were beyond my understanding.

Could you advise how could I fix these issues,

Thanks,

Andrew

Hi. I'm having a similar issue. The above code works for me. However, when it mounts the folder at /tmp/..., there is nothing in it. Even though there are a tonne of files in there. Any idea why this is happening ?