Gentoo

Ephracis · 05-14-2005, 03:48 PM

Can I use dm-crypt or cryptoloop to encrypt the root partition in a stage 1 gentoo? I have never tried Gentoo out and thought I might try it out.

Matir · 05-14-2005, 04:03 PM

I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that, provided you set up a proper initrd with the install to mount the encrypted partition. I do wonder WHY you want to encrypt the root partition, however. I would think encrypting data to be enough (so encrypt /home).

Ephracis · 05-14-2005, 05:14 PM

I was mostly wondering if the kernel that comes with the cd supports this.

The reason why I want to encrypt the whole root partition is that I do not only want to encrypt /home but also the logs and the configure files. Instead of putting /var and /etc in different partitions I thought it might be easier to put /boot in a partition and then encrypt the whole root (and /home).

Matir · 05-14-2005, 09:42 PM

Well, an encrypted partition only works when the system is off, and if you intend for it to be bootable without use intervention, there is no way to make it 'secure'.

Ephracis · 05-15-2005, 08:11 AM

Yes, of course. But in my case I want to know that if anyone else get my disks they will have a hard time to access the data. But, if I would encrypt the root partition, how easy would that work? Can I then just boot the box and when the root partition is about to get mounted I would just be prompted for a password?