Ubuntu Security :: Access Encrypted Home Folder From Recover Mode?
Nov 26, 2010
I logged in to Recover Mode ("Drop to root shell prompt") this morning to do something. Naturally, I wanted access to my encrypted home folder.
The README file says to run ecryptfs-mount-private. However, that command returns an error:
"ERROR: Encrypted private directory is not setup properly."
This cannot be correct, because if I log in normally, I get my home folder without any problem.
How can I access my encrypted home folder when I boot via Recover Mode?
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May 16, 2011
I upgraded from ubuntu 9.10 to 11.04. During installation (Natty) I chosen the option to encrypt the home folder. After a day the system crashed. It was showing that disk is having health problems. If I boot from live cd then i cant access the home folder. When I tried to mount the home folder, it says "Reading directory: input/output error"
Because I used Karmic without problem I reinstalled the Karmic, then I can mount the home folder, but cant access it as it was encrypted.Now Karmic is installed. I tried to boot from Live CD of Natty and tried to mount /home folder, it says some super-block issues.How to access the files in the home folder?
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Apr 26, 2010
While setting up my laptop on a new hard drive (a bad mobo caused writes which pretty much rendered teh old hdd unusable) I was asked if I wanted to encrypt my home partition.
I've been wanting this for several years - even going as far as trying to get a copy of CheckPoint. That's waht my organization uses on all Wintendo laptops and is required.
In any case, I said "yes" and am happily using my laptop with an encrypted home partition. I'm assuming based on this - [URL] - that it is using EncryptFS as the scheme.
if I were to misplace my laptop, how easy would it be for a forensics team to retrieve my data. Let's assume I have a fairly strong passphrase, such as BisZumBitterenEnd3. [URL]
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May 3, 2010
I had some major problems after the recent Ubuntu upgrade and had to boot from a live cd. I have a separate /home partition, but it was encrypted using the default install encryption in the 9.10 install cd. How can I get to my files so I can back them up?
I have tried this but it did not work: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1337693
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Feb 16, 2011
I had issues on my last install , I couldn't boot into it cause I accidentally uninstalled python 2.6 and everything it was attached to. So I reinstalled on a separate hard drive, I can see my other file system from the media folder but the only thing in my home dir isthese 2 files 1 read methatsaysPHPCode:THIS DIRECTORY HAS BEEN UNMOUNTED TO PROTECT YOUR DATA.From the graphical desktop, click on: "AccessYour Private Data"orFrom the command line, run: ecryptfs-mount-private and then this file Access-Your-Private-Data.desktopbut when I click it and try to run it I get thisrrorPHPCode:Untrusted application launcherThe application launcher "Access-Your-.desktop" has not been marked as trusted. If you do not know the source of this file, launching it may bensafe.
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Mar 9, 2010
I just installed 9.10 on my laptop and selected the option for home folder encryption. I am running DropBox and placed the DropBox folder on my desktop (meaning it should be encrypted when I am logged out.) So I have two questions:
1) Shouldn't this setup cause my DropBox files on the server to be encrypted? Apparently they are not because they appear as unencrypted text using the DropBox Web interface.
2) If they were encrypted on the server (which doesn't appear to be the case right now), how would it be possible to share them with another client unless the encryption on both clients were set up identically?
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Jul 19, 2010
Let's begin from the top. I have a relatively new laptop that I've been running Ubuntu on (along with a little-used Windows boot). Picked it up in November or so, installed the current "latest" version of Ubuntu at the time (9.10). I have been doing incremental upgrades, and it's been progressively breaking down more and more. Yes, this includes 10.04.
After GRUB stopped working, I decided it was time to try a reinstall from the top. I told it to leave all the other operating systems alone and do a full reinstall.
Fortunately, I had managed to stuff most of my current work in duplicate locations during this whole debacle, somehow. Don't ask me how I managed to do that when GRUB wasn't working. However, when I installed, I conscientiously said "Oh, yes, Ubuntu, encrypt my home folder! I love privacy!" As a result, about... 30 gigabytes of useful (but ultimately re-downloadable) material is rather inaccessible at the moment. When I try to boot the old system using the newly fixed GRUB, it goes into kernel panic. This seems like a no-go.
I have a saved hojillion-character long passphrase for decryption from my install back in November. Conscientiously saved in the case of just such an emergency.
I read this how-to and followed it to the letter as far as I could tell, trying to mount with ecrytfs to recover my data.
[USERNAME] here is a proxy for my actual username. Yes, the location of my old home folder may seem a little bizarre.
Code:
sudo mount -t ecryptfs /media/c82ca9fe-2b15-4aca-a98d-6482b1d80a32/home/[USERNAME]/ /home/[USERNAME]/oldhome
Passphrase:
Select cipher:
1) aes: blocksize = 16; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 32 (not loaded)
[Code].....
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Oct 10, 2010
I'm still running 9.10, but now would like to install 10.10. Now I'm wondering about how to keep access to my encrypted home folder.
Usually, I don't do an 'upgrade', but a fresh re-install. I have a separate /home partition, so normally this works just fine. However, my home directory is encrypted (a feature that was introduced with 9.10, I believe).
So, if I whack the system partition and do a fresh reinstall there, will the new install still be able to read my home directory? Or do I need to save a key file from somewhere?
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Nov 25, 2010
I've done something a bit stupid. I've already encrypted my home folder and just set it to log in without requesting my password. When i do log in now, no startup sound plays, several error messages appear but no desktop. I think it's because I now don't have an opportunity to enter my home folder password, and it doesn't work at all. Is there any way to edit account settings from 'root' or anything because this really has crippled my computer.
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Apr 11, 2010
What are the steps I must take to move my existing home folder to a separate, encrypted partition? Can I create this partition without damaging my current partition? Where is a trusted location to download App Armor profiles? What else can I do to harden the security of Ubuntu?
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Mar 18, 2011
I would like to give a few students a preconfigured Ubuntu USB stick with certain apps. I also encrypted the home folder in case of loss.
With TrueCrypt, cloning an encrypted container would be a big no-no because any one could just backup their header with a known pw and use it to decrypt anyone else's container due to each container using the same master key. I assumes the same applies to home folder encryption, yes?
Is there a way, other than creating a new user with home folder encryption, of forcing a master key change?
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Aug 16, 2011
while since I've been here. I'm having an issue with a fresh install of 11.04. Due to work requirements, I encrypted my home folder, which is fine, however, it seems to randomly lock itself down while I'm working, and it's getting really annoying.
Apps stop working, I can't open nautilus (something about not being able to create certain folders because home is locked), hell, even the terminal link on my desktop says failed to launch application (though the launcher on the top panel works). I just have to run ecryptfs-mount-private and enter my password to fix it, but it's doing this every 15 minutes or so. what might cause it to relock itself so frequently? I would expect to not have to deal with mounting my private data, that should happen at login and be good until log out.
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Jun 1, 2011
computer running ubuntu 10.10 is failing to boot and I want to access the private data in the home folder in order to recover data onto another disk. How do I go about doing this? As far as I can remember its not encrypted but am still unable to access the data to backup.
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May 17, 2010
If I wanted to transfer a home folder that was encrypted to another ubuntu computer could I? If I had a separate home partition that was encrypted, but I wanted to upgrade ubuntu to the latest version by doing a clean install is there an easy way so that I can still read the data encrypted with the old version?
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Jan 30, 2011
After buying an IBM/Lenovo USB fingerprint reader model FP06 and installing Fingerprint GUI, have problems to mount my home folder encrypted with eCyptfs. I was using it since the first time i install Ubuntu 10.10 64 bits. After login from GDM, there are some ways to make it work:
1) open a terminal window and type ecryptfs-mount-private. This decrypt the home folder, but need to logout and login again to my personal preferences can be reached (bookmarks in nautilus, in firefox, etc). Each time the PC is rebooted, the same process is needed to made again.
2) before login in GDM, change to a tty1 terminal (ctrl-alt-F1) and login from here. The personal folder decrypt then without problems. Then change to GDM (ctrl-alt-F, login an everything works fine. What could be the fault from GDM to not mount the encrypted folder?
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Nov 22, 2010
Dummy me let root run out of space because I didn't know to use logrotate. I was able to compress the system logs but not before the damage was done me thinks; now the computer is unbootable. I booted from a LiveCD and got my old partitions mounted under /media/oldroot to try and recover files; however, I forgot that I had encrypted my home. I found [URL] and was following it; however, I seem to run into a bunch of path issues after I chroot.
The chroot command returns:
bash: groups: command not found
The su command returns:
-su: cut: command not found
-su: getent: command not found
-su: expr: command not found
-su: groups: command not found
Finally, the ecryptfs-mount-private command returns:
-su: ecryptfs-mount-private: command not found
I have separate partitons for /, /home, /tmp, /usr, and /usr/local and bothered to mount the first 2. (If only I had been ambitious enough to create a /var). I was running Ubuntu 10.10.
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Jun 14, 2011
so, after long time of succesfull use of kubuntu, i encountered a 1st major disaster yesterday while using kphotoalbum. It has somehow frozen my machine in so mighty way, that it apparently corrupted a directory with majority of my pictures , which now appears to be empty .My home lies on a separate partition, its encrypted aand using btrfs and I am using kubuntu 10.10. So, could anyone give me some clues how to unencrypt my home partition, that i could obtain an image of partition or whatever else usable for photorec to check for pictures?
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Jul 13, 2010
I can't remember if i choose encrypt my home folder when i first install ubuntu.
is there a way to know if it's encrypted?
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Feb 10, 2010
I recently did a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10 and when I did I chose to have /home on it's own partition and have it encrypted. The more I think about it the more I regret this decision. What if I want to switch distros down the road? What if I have to boot from a live cd to back up files? Is there a way to "undo" the encrypted home folder permanently? I don't mind having it on it's own partition, it's just the encryption that makes me worry.
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Feb 13, 2010
I recently installed Ubuntu Karmic on my netbook (I tried netbook remix but preferred the look of the regular desktop edition). When during installation, the option to encrypt the home folder appeared, and being mildly paranoid I thought, "sure, why not?" (I must warn you that I am a new user with little technical knowledge other than what I have managed to gather in a semi-passive manner over the past couple of months). The problem is, I (try to) backup my data weekly, and so today I gave it a shot (I got the desktop edition a week ago). I have encountered the following problem.
I backup my system following (approximately) the instructions at [URL] for Backup The exact command I enter at backup is:
sudo tar -cvpjf 2010.02.13.tar.bz2 --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/sys --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/media --exclude=/home/dan/music /
(I exclude my music folder as it is huge and I already have it all in several other locations) When I executed this command all ran smoothly for a while, however it soon began backing up the directory /home/.ecryptfs/dan/.Private At this point, it started backing up the huge number of files in this directory. I assume these are encryption keys? Forgive my ignorance... Anyway, it took several hours going through this folder, and finally bzip gave up, complaining of excessive file size:
bzip2: I/O or other error, bailing out. Possible reason follows.
bzip2: File too large
Input file = (stdin), output file = (stdout)
I assume that excluding the encryption keys and such from the backup would be a bad idea: I guess that if I did not restore the relevant directories along with my home folder, it would be inaccessible? Is there a way to avoid backing up such a large amount of data?
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Nov 15, 2010
How to decrypt encrypted home folder?Which is already encrypted ?
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Sep 18, 2010
Just did a new netbook install of Lucid. Went through the setup, putting in my usual username etc. But I thought as it's a portable, I'd better select the encrypted home folder option. All went OK.
I have a home network with a NAS and I needed to change the UID to 1004 to match the rest of the network.
That's when it all when wrong. If I do that, I end up with no permissions on the user folder. A bit of a paradox, you can't change UID if logged in, but unless you're logged in, can't access the files.
My attempts to get around it by changing UID's back chowning, changing back etc. have screwed things up completely.
I have managed to open the encrypted folder and chown, but after a reboot it's all back to the original UIDs, but now I can't get in at all.
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Nov 17, 2010
My laptop running on ubuntu has been having some issues and it's giving error reports on logging in. Because I want to retrieve my files above all else, I installed ubuntu to a usb-stick and booted it directly from there. I can asses /media/myharddrive/home and there's a folder called lennard, which is the user account on my laptop. I can't open it however, because I don't have the necessary permissions. I'm afraid I encrypted it with an option that was standard to ubuntu. I have a 23-digit code right in front of me but I'm not asked to enter it so I don't know what to do with it right now.
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Dec 9, 2010
During the installation of 10.04 I opted to have my home folder encrypted. I no longer want my home folder to be encrypted. How may I achieve this ?
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Feb 6, 2011
I installed 10.10nbr on my wife's eee 901. Now she cannot remember her password. I've tried booting to recovery to use the passwd command, but that does not work. I believe I encrypted the home folder when I installed. Normally if I don't encrypt home, then I enable auto-login.
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Mar 8, 2011
I want to create a user with a encrypted home folder. I tried "sudo adduser --encrypt-home username" but I get following error "adduser: Could not find program named `ecryptfs-setup-private' in $PATH". I installed the cryptsetup package but without result.
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Apr 11, 2011
I'm guessing that a file is created as a loopback device and encrypted (using LUKS?)
What is the mechanism used at user login to decrypt and mount the encrypted $HOME and to re-encrypt it at logout?
I confess an ulterior motive here - SWMBO has recently got her hands on an Acer Aspire one running Linpus Lite and there's absolutely no security on it
Personally I'd dump Linpus and put on openSUSE but it's her box and she likes the simple interface that Acer have supplied so maybe I can set up the encrypted $HOME as YaST does for openSUSE if I can find out what to do.
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Jan 27, 2011
I have choosen to encrypt Ubuntu 10.10 during installation (no alternate installation). After some time of working properly I get following error message after I put in correct password :
"Could not update ICE authority file /home/surf1/.ICE authority"
When I click "ok" following error message is shown :
"there is a problem with the configurationserver (/usr/lib/libconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check-2 finished with status 256)"
When I click this "ok" next error message appears :
"Nautilus could not create following necessary files : home/surf1/Desktop,/home/surf1/.nautilus"
After I click here ok nothing else happen anymore and I get not access to my account and so to my data.
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Mar 15, 2010
During the installation of Ubuntu Karmic, I picked the option that encrypts my home directory.
A few questions:
(1) Shortly after installation, I was asked to run a command to print a key necessary for data recovery from a rescue CD. I didn't run it at the time and am now looking for the command to run. What is it?
(2) I think I read somewhere that this also encrypts swap. Great. Correct me if that's wrong.
(3) If I suspend the machine, is my home directory encrypted? That is, if I have this on a laptop and travel with the suspended laptop and someone steals it, are my data safe, or not?
(4) I assume the weakest point in the system is my relatively short login password (but I think the install tests it and found it okay). Is there a recommendation how long this should be?
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Sep 22, 2010
I've upgraded to my old dell from Xubuntu 9.10 to Xubuntu 10.04 and set up separate /home partition. I chose to encrypt the /home folder when I installed. I'm wondering if that's the quick answer for why I can no longer sftp from my Ubuntu Jaunty laptop. Both machines are on my desk, and I've been happily using ssh to get files between them before this. The Xubuntu machine has openssh server and client installed, the Jaunty machine has only ever had only the ssh client. Now I get a popup saying "Could not open location ..." and the sftp address, and "Host key verification failed." I've not done much with this new install, so I don't mind just re-installing again. I don't need an ecrypted /home, but I do want very much to be able to continue to ssh into that machine. Is it my encrypted /home that's causing this?
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