ecryptfs on sub-directory?

ecryptfs on sub-directory?

[Leam Hall]

Hey all, sorry for the newbie question. I didn't find the answer in the 
docs I found.

If I mount a filessystem on Linux, say /dev/sda4 as /opt, and create a 
directory under /opt; like /opt/backup. Can I use ecryptfs to mount 
/opt/backup onto itself so that just that portion of the file system is 
encrypted?

Thanks!

Leam

Re: ecryptfs on sub-directory?

[Michael Chang]

On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 7:51 AM, Leam Hall <leamhall@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey all, sorry for the newbie question. I didn't find the answer in the docs
> I found.
>
> If I mount a filessystem on Linux, say /dev/sda4 as /opt, and create a
> directory under /opt; like /opt/backup. Can I use ecryptfs to mount
> /opt/backup onto itself so that just that portion of the file system is
> encrypted?

The impression that I get is that encrypting only part of the
filesystem is one of the primary use cases of ecryptfs. (For example,
if you have a single file system for / but want to have an encrypted
home directory.)

You may want to consider whether it is preferable to have separate
lower and upper mount points, e.g. /opt/backup and
/opt/.backup_encrypted or some such. That way, if /opt is mounted and
/opt/backup isn't, you don't accidentally clobber or try to use the
encrypted backing files.

--
Best regards,

Michael Chang