DaveQB's Rambles

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/introduction-forensics

Needed this a year ago when I had a suspected security breach on my server. I haven't read it yet, but looks like what I needed.

encfs is a fuse based encryption method. It allows you to have a folder thats encrypted and can be mounted with a password. libpam-encfs allows this mounting process to happen as you login. So a good use for this is to encrypt your entire home folder, so no one can gain access to the data in there without your login password. Particularly important for laptops or devices that can be lost or stolen easily. This is where I use it, on my laptop.

I set this up when I first got my laptop. Not my entire home, just a folder it in that I would store anything remotely sensitive. My main hesitation in doing my entire home folder is the loss in performance due to every file action requiring an (d)encryption.

I can't find the tutorial I used last time. It was quite good. But this one is a nice simple one that worked first go.

http://choffee.co.uk/HowTo/HomeEncryption/

Notes: For me, on Kubuntu Hardy 8.04 (my laptop) there 2 things that were different to the tutorial, but relatively simple to work through.

1. Where it says open up /etc/pam.d/common-auth, mine was a little different. I had in mine the word "requisite" where the tutorial said "required" should be, Maybe a change in Hardy, not sure, but I assume it was the same and continued on, adding use_first_pass at the end of that line.
2. Twice it refers to pam_encfs.conf. Both times different names. For me, this file was:

   /etc/security/pam_encfs.conf