Ubuntu 11.10 Home Encryption Performance

"Supported since Ubuntu 9.04 has been the ability to encrypt the entire home directory of a user, either when using the Ubiquity desktop installer or the alternate/server installer. The home directory encryption is done over eCryptfs and the user's directory is automatically un-encrypted when entering the user password for their account. Only the user-data is protected, which is most important, but the rest of the file-system remains open.

The original option for disk encryption in Ubuntu was around since Ubuntu 7.10 and that is using a fully encrypted LVM. Unfortunately, to this day, the option is only available from the Ubuntu alternate/server installer. There is still no easy way from the standard desktop installer to setup a fully encrypted LVM.

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Related Stories:

• Data Encryption and Ubuntu, Part III(Dec 01, 2008)
• Data encryption and Ubuntu, Part I(Nov 21, 2008)
• Ubuntu Linux Disk Encryption Benchmarks(Mar 18, 2008)