encrypted file system: password-less encryption?

hydraMax · 01-23-2011, 05:24 PM

I think encfs is pretty cool, and use it all the time. However, I wish it were possible to create an encfs without needing to use a password, i.e., by providing a separate key (like a PGP key, for example). Is this something that the encfs developers are planning to add to encfs one day? Is there another project, similar to encfs, that provides this functionality?

macemoneta · 01-24-2011, 12:33 AM

From 'man encfs':

Code:

--extpass=program
           Specify an external program to use for getting the user password.  When the external program is spawned, the environment variable "RootDir" will be set
           to contain the path to the root directory.  The program should print the password to standard output.

           EncFS takes everything returned from the program to be the password, except for a trailing newline (\n) which will be removed.

           For example, specifying --extpass=/usr/lib/ssh/ssh-askpass will cause EncFS to use ssh's password prompt program.

           Note: EncFS reads at most 2k of data from the password program, and it removes any trailing newline.  Versions before 1.4.x accepted only 64 bytes of
           text.

Just put up to a 2K key in a file (on a thumbdrive, for example), and use the '--extpass' option to 'cat' it. For example:

Code:

encfs --extpass='/bin/cat /media/thumbdrive/pw' /home/user/encrypted /home/user/unencrypted