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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] encrypted filesystems -- LUKS versus eCryptfs?

  • Subject: Re: [OCLUG-Tech] encrypted filesystems -- LUKS versus eCryptfs?
  • From: Phil Labonté <plabonte [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com>
  • Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 09:58:22 -0500
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> On Jan 2, 2014, at 9:43 AM, Martin Hicks <mort [ at ] bork [ dot ] org> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Alex Pilon <alp [ at ] alexpilon [ dot ] ca> wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 03:47:05PM -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>> 
>> LUKS does block device symmetric encryption. It's in a way a wrapper
>> around dm-crypt. Plain dm-crypt requires you to specify all the
>> parameters manually, whereas LUKS creates a header at the beginning of
>> the block device. dm-crypt requires you to understand the crypto, and
>> won't do things like salting your secret. LUKS will randomly generate
>> (and salt if I recall correctly) a master secret, and provide ten
>> “slots” for weaker secrets (e.g., passwords, passphrases, or binary data
>> of your chosing), which it'll run through PBKDF2.
> 
> This is close, but there is no "weaker" secret.  For each "slot" (of
> which I think there are 8) that is activated, the "Master" key is
> encrypted using the passphrase/data that is provided when the slot is
> enabled/configured (when you create a new LUKS device, there is only a
> single slot activated).  In the default configuration, the Master Key
> is an AES encryption key.
> 
> Later, when you're prompted for the passphrase to unlock the LUKS
> device, cryptsetup loops through each enabled slot using the provided
> passphrase and gets some Master Key as a result.  It verifies (I can't
> remember how...looks for a header?) if this Master Key makes sense
> i.e., it successfully decrypts some data in a way that yields correct
> plaintext.
> 
> So, with multiple slots enabled the Master Key is encrypted multiple
> times using different passphrases and PBKDF2.
> 
> mh
> 
> -- 
> Martin Hicks P.Eng.      |         mort [ at ] bork [ dot ] org
> Bork Consulting Inc.     |   +1 (613) 266-2296
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