Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[Shannon]

/		10GB	Reiser
/home	40GB	Reiser encrypted FS
/swap	300mb


As per the harddrive configuration, if my / partition becomes corrupted or if 
I choose to install a fresh copy of SuSe9.2 Pro over / and remount /home, 
what do need to backup or how do I backup the files needed to restore the 
encrypted partition /home

Re: Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[Shannon]

I haven't received a reply to this, so I'm going to be more specific:

When you create an encrypted partition, where is this configuration stored?

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 02:48 pm, Shannon wrote:
> /		10GB	Reiser
> /home	40GB	Reiser encrypted FS
> /swap	300mb
>
>
> As per the harddrive configuration, if my / partition becomes corrupted or
> if I choose to install a fresh copy of SuSe9.2 Pro over / and remount
> /home, what do need to backup or how do I backup the files needed to
> restore the encrypted partition /home

Re: Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[Chester R. Hosey]

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What configuration? I'm not really sure what you're asking, which means
that it's difficult to formulate an answer. People on this list are
generally very willing to help, but their ability to help is limited by
how much information you give about what you're looking to do.

As far as backing up a partition and restoring that backup, use tar. GNU
tar (which is almost certainly the default on GNU/Linux systems) is
quite full-featured and should be able to serve your needs.

If you're asking how to inform a GNU/Linux system about partitions you
want to have mounted, you're probably looking for the /etc/fstab file.
Try "man fstab" to see the manual page, and examine your current
/etc/fstab to see what partitions the operating system knows about (with
respect to filesystem type, where to mount by default, whether to mount
on boot, etc.).

If this hasn't provided you with the information you need to find an
answer, perhaps you could try a bit more specifically. Describe the
situation in which you find yourself, and what you hope to be able to
do. Bonus points are awarded if it's a question specific to ReiserFS, as
this is the topic of this list.


Shannon wrote:
| I haven't received a reply to this, so I'm going to be more specific:
|
| When you create an encrypted partition, where is this configuration
stored?
|
| On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 02:48 pm, Shannon wrote:
|
|>/		10GB	Reiser
|>/home	40GB	Reiser encrypted FS
|>/swap	300mb
|>
|>
|>As per the harddrive configuration, if my / partition becomes corrupted or
|>if I choose to install a fresh copy of SuSe9.2 Pro over / and remount
|>/home, what do need to backup or how do I backup the files needed to
|>restore the encrypted partition /home

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Re: Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[Bedros Hanounik]

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I have a very similar problem;

Assume that I created an ecnrypted partition using reiserfs. I know I can 
access the partition after a regular boot, but what if I used LiveCD?

What data (and where it's stored) I need in order to access that partition 
using knoppix LiveCD for example. 

I wanted to have an encrypted partition, but my problem is I don't know how 
to findthe encryption keys and save them in a safe place. Just in case the 
system die and I don't have a recent backup.
 
-Bedros


On Apr 8, 2005 7:27 PM, Chester R. Hosey <chosey@nauticom.net> wrote:
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> What configuration? I'm not really sure what you're asking, which means
> that it's difficult to formulate an answer. People on this list are
> generally very willing to help, but their ability to help is limited by
> how much information you give about what you're looking to do.
> 
> As far as backing up a partition and restoring that backup, use tar. GNU
> tar (which is almost certainly the default on GNU/Linux systems) is
> quite full-featured and should be able to serve your needs.
> 
> If you're asking how to inform a GNU/Linux system about partitions you
> want to have mounted, you're probably looking for the /etc/fstab file.
> Try "man fstab" to see the manual page, and examine your current
> /etc/fstab to see what partitions the operating system knows about (with
> respect to filesystem type, where to mount by default, whether to mount
> on boot, etc.).
> 
> If this hasn't provided you with the information you need to find an
> answer, perhaps you could try a bit more specifically. Describe the
> situation in which you find yourself, and what you hope to be able to
> do. Bonus points are awarded if it's a question specific to ReiserFS, as
> this is the topic of this list.
> 
> 
> Shannon wrote:
> | I haven't received a reply to this, so I'm going to be more specific:
> |
> | When you create an encrypted partition, where is this configuration
> stored?
> |
> | On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 02:48 pm, Shannon wrote:
> |
> |>/ 10GB Reiser
> |>/home 40GB Reiser encrypted FS
> |>/swap 300mb
> |>
> |>
> |>As per the harddrive configuration, if my / partition becomes corrupted 
> or
> |>if I choose to install a fresh copy of SuSe9.2 Pro over / and remount
> |>/home, what do need to backup or how do I backup the files needed to
> |>restore the encrypted partition /home
> 
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Re: Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[Hubert Chan]

>>>>> "Chester" == Chester R Hosey <chosey@nauticom.net> writes:

Chester> As far as backing up a partition and restoring that backup, use
Chester> tar. GNU tar (which is almost certainly the default on
Chester> GNU/Linux systems) is quite full-featured and should be able to
Chester> serve your needs.

This should probably be obvious to anyone using encryption, but just in
case...
  If you back up using tar, don't store the tar file unencrypted.

Also, you should be encrypting your swap file, or else bits of your data
could end up there unencrypted.

-- 
Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA
Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7  5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net.   Encrypted e-mail preferred.

Re: Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[David Masover]

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Hash: SHA1

Chester R. Hosey wrote:
> What configuration? I'm not really sure what you're asking, which means
> that it's difficult to formulate an answer. People on this list are
> generally very willing to help, but their ability to help is limited by
> how much information you give about what you're looking to do.
> 
> As far as backing up a partition and restoring that backup, use tar. GNU
> tar (which is almost certainly the default on GNU/Linux systems) is
> quite full-featured and should be able to serve your needs.

Rsync if you've got a networked computer.  dd if you've got a spare
drive/partition exactly the size of the one you want to back up.
GmailFS if you want a free offline backup solution (~2GB)

> If you're asking how to inform a GNU/Linux system about partitions you
> want to have mounted, you're probably looking for the /etc/fstab file.
> Try "man fstab" to see the manual page, and examine your current
> /etc/fstab to see what partitions the operating system knows about (with
> respect to filesystem type, where to mount by default, whether to mount
> on boot, etc.).

The issue was crypto, I think.

> If this hasn't provided you with the information you need to find an
> answer, perhaps you could try a bit more specifically. Describe the
> situation in which you find yourself, and what you hope to be able to
> do. Bonus points are awarded if it's a question specific to ReiserFS, as
> this is the topic of this list.

Indeed.  And if you're having trouble figuring out how to ask your
question, you should probably try an IRC channel.  I know that #gentoo
on irc.freenode.net is very active and good at helping people with
Gentoo Linux, or at least redirecting them to an appropriate channel.

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Re: Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[Hubert Chan]

>>>>> "Shannon" == Shannon  <shakim@bluebottle.com> writes:

Shannon> I haven't received a reply to this, so I'm going to be more
Shannon> specific: When you create an encrypted partition, where is this
Shannon> configuration stored?

How did you encrypt the partition?  Are you using loop-AES? dm-crypt?
cryptapi?

-- 
Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA
Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7  5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA
Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net.   Encrypted e-mail preferred.

Re: Protect/Backup Encrypted FS

[David Masover]

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Hash: SHA1

Shannon wrote:
> I haven't received a reply to this, so I'm going to be more specific:
> 
> When you create an encrypted partition, where is this configuration stored?
> 
> On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 02:48 pm, Shannon wrote:
> 
>>/		10GB	Reiser
>>/home	40GB	Reiser encrypted FS

v3 or 4?  Or, how are you encrypting your FS?

Look at your boot scripts, and your initrd if you have one.  You almost
certainly have to remember a passphrase and back up a key.  In any case,
if you are looking for the file, you might want to ask SuSe.

This only becomes a Reiser issue if you're using the reiser4 crypto
plugin, and I haven't heard anything about that being done.  If you are
encrypting a ReiserFS v3 filesystem, you are probably not using anything
Reiser specific -- it's probably something like cryptoloop or dm-crypt,
in which case you should google for those.

>>/swap	300mb
>>
>>
>>As per the harddrive configuration, if my / partition becomes corrupted or
>>if I choose to install a fresh copy of SuSe9.2 Pro over / and remount
>>/home, what do need to backup or how do I backup the files needed to
>>restore the encrypted partition /home

Do you mean "remount" or "reformat"?  If you are going to wipe out /home
and reformat, you don't need to do anything other than back up the files
in /home.  If you are planning to wipe out / and reinstall, but keep
/home, the config file you're looking for is /etc/fstab.

That still doesn't tell you how to deal with the encryption, though.
Until you can tell people what kind of encryption system you're using,
no one will be able to help you, and the ReiserFS list will probably
assume it's not their problem.

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