LinuxQuestions.org - Password protecting a directory/file

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Password protecting a directory/file

Hi,

Is it possible to password protect a directory on Fedora with gnome such that the security would still be intact if the folder was transferred onto a usb (vfat) and onto a windows xp machine?

Copy folder/directory to the thumb drive. Open the filemanager of the contents of the thumb drive. Highlight the directory you wish to secure. Right click and select Permissions. Set permissions to your preferences. Of course, if you have set it "read only" you CANNOT expect to then copy it to another drive. This should be OS independent.

Setting permissions on files/directories won't provide any sort of security for data which will be stored on removable media. You need to use encryption, and probably the most popular multi-platform software for that is TrueCrypt. Of course, if you don't need to actually use the data from within Windows, then you don't need any multi-platform solution. I usually just use the openssl command to encrypt stuff with AES 256, like:

Code:

openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -in example.tar.gz -out example.tar.gz.enc

If you want a directory where anything you put in gets encrypted and you don't care about accessing it in Windows maybe give eCryptfs a try. Ubuntu's next release (Intrepid Ibex) will be putting it to good use.

Cheers guys, looks like TrueCrypt is what I'm looking for. Thanks.