knoppix 5.1-- how to mount an encrypted partition?

bezdomny · 07-12-2008, 01:38 PM

Trying to mount an encrypted partition in Knoppix 5.1 so I can rescue my data as my GUI (X server?) no longer works and dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg doesn't seem to help:

# mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb5 /media/hdb5=

Code:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdb5,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

# dmesg | tail=

Code:

VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev hdb5

I know this partition is ext3 file system. Is there an extra step or different procedure for mounting an encrypted partition in Knoppix?

Thank you! and best regards from (smoky) Northern California USA

bezdomny

rjlee · 07-12-2008, 03:39 PM

If the partition is encrypted, then you need to create a virtual device with the unencrypted data, then mount that.

How to do that depends on how it was encrypted. Password-protected LUKS is quite common, so you might try

Code:

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/hdb5 hdb5_crypt

This will prompt for your password, and create a device named /dev/mapper/hdb5_crypt, which you can then mount.

For more details, see the cryptsetup manpage: http://linux.die.net/man/8/cryptsetup

bezdomny · 07-12-2008, 11:19 PM

Thanks, rjlee. LUKS in fact is the system I'm using. I'll try it out and also study the info at the link you posted.

Thanks and best regards!

bezdomny