• bunnie
  • Administrator
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  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2014-05-25
  • Posts: 56

Topic: dm-crypt reliability?

Anybody use dm-crypt to encrypt a logical partition, particularly a loopback file?

I'm looking at the implementation and have some concerns about how it performs in the face of unexpected power-downs or crashes. Since I do a lot of testing and dev work on my Novena, this is not an uncommon occurrence. Also, I have concerns about the codebase maturity, particularly with respect to loose ends and assumptions that may cause problems in an ARM implementation.

Also open to hear alternate suggestions for a "better" utility to use to encrypt a partition. I'm not looking for file-level encryption, for this use case I'd prefer to be able to encrypt a section of disk and mount it as such.

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2 Reply by jcftang (edited by jcftang 2014-10-14 16:26:36)

  • Registered: 2014-06-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: dm-crypt reliability?

I'm just using the device mapper for creating novena images and not encrypting things.

However if you are looking for an alternative then maybe ecryptfs might be suitable, its allegedly used on chromeos on chromebooks. It might be a bit more reliable than dm-crypt and friends though I have not used it myself.

I forgot to mention that ecryptfs probably isn't what you want if you want to encrypt up arbritrary block devices

  • Registered: 2014-11-20
  • Posts: 2

Re: dm-crypt reliability?

I've used dm-crypt on logical partitions for years and haven't had an problems with it. The power at my house will flicker once every few months and the worst problem I've had is the journaling takes a bit longer to recover. Granted I'm running on an x86 system and not an arm. Encryptfs is more for file system level encryption rather than block devices.