4. Troubleshooting
5. Security Aspects
6. Backup and Data Recovery
-7. Issues with Specific Versions of cryptsetup
+7. Interoperability with other Disk Encryption Tools
+8. Issues with Specific Versions of cryptsetup
A. Contributors
This is the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for cryptsetup. It
covers Linux disk encryption with plain dm-crypt (one passphrase,
- no management, no descriptor on disk) and LUKS (multiple user keys
- with one master key, anti-forensics, descriptor block at start of
- device, ...). The latest version should usually be available at
+ no management, no metadata on disk) and LUKS (multiple user keys
+ with one master key, anti-forensic features, metadata block at
+ start of device, ...). The latest version of this FAQ should
+ usually be available at
http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
+
+ * WARNINGS
+
ATTENTION: If you are going to read just one thing, make it the
section on Backup and Data Recovery. By far the most questions on
- the cryptsetup mailing list are from people that just managed to
- somehow format or overwrite the start of their LUKS partitions. In
+ the cryptsetup mailing list are from people that managed to damage
+ the start of their LUKS partitions, i.e. the LUKS header. In
most cases, there is nothing that can be done to help these poor
souls recover their data. Make sure you understand the problem and
- limitations imposed by the LUKS security model BEFORE you face such
- a disaster!
+ limitations imposed by the LUKS security model BEFORE you face
+ such a disaster! In particular, make sure you have a current header
+ backup before doing any potentially dangerous operations.
+
+ DISTRIBUTION INSTALLERS: Some distribution installers offer to
+ create LUKS containers in a way that can be mistaken as activation
+ of an existing container. Creating a new LUKS container on top of
+ an existing one leads to permanent, complete and irreversible data
+ loss. It is strongly recommended to only use distribution
+ installers after a complete backup of all LUKS containers has been
+ made.
+
+ LUKS PASSPHRASE IS NOT THE MASTER KEY: The LUKS passphrase is not
+ used in deriving the master key. It is used in decrypting a master
+ key that is randomly selected on header creation. This means that
+ if you create a new LUKS header on top of an old one with
+ exactly the same parameters and exactly the same passphrase as the
+ old one, it will still have a different master key and your data
+ will be permanently lost.
+
+ PASSPHRASE CHARACTER SET: Some people have had difficulties with
+ this when upgrading distributions. It is highly advisable to only
+ use the 94 printable characters from the first 128 characters of
+ the ASCII table, as they will always have the same binary
+ representation. Other characters may have different encoding
+ depending on system configuration and your passphrase will not
+ work with a different encoding. A table of the standardized first
+ 128 ASCII caracters can, e.g. be found on
+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII
+
+
+ * System Specific warnings
+
+ - Ubuntu as of 4/2011: It seems the installer offers to create
+ LUKS partitions in a way that several people mistook for an offer
+ to activate their existing LUKS partition. The installer gives no
+ or an inadequate warning and will destroy your old LUKS header,
+ causing permanent data loss. See also the section on Backup and
+ Data Recovery.
+
+ This issue has been acknowledged by the Ubuntu dev team, see here:
+ http://launchpad.net/bugs/420080
* Who wrote this?
contributors are listed at the end. If you want to contribute, send
your article, including a descriptive headline, to the maintainer,
or the dm-crypt mailing list with something like "FAQ ..." in the
- subject. Please note that by contributing to this FAQ, you accept
- the license described below.
+ subject. You can also send more raw information and have me write
+ the section. Please note that by contributing to this FAQ, you
+ accept the license described below.
This work is under the "Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported"
license, which means distribution is unlimited, you may create
2. Setup
+ * What is the difference between "plain" and LUKS format?
+
+ Plain format is just that: It has no metadata on disk, reads all
+ paramters from the commandline (or the defaults), derives a
+ master-key from the passphrase and then uses that to de-/encrypt
+ the sectors of the device, with a direct 1:1 mapping between
+ encrypted and decrypted sectors.
+
+ Primary advantage is high resilience to damage, as one damaged
+ encrypted sector results in exactly one damaged decrypted sector.
+ Also, it is not readily apparent that there even is encrypted data
+ on the device, as an overwrite with crypto-grade randomness (e.g.
+ from /dev/urandom) looks exactly the same on disk.
+
+ Side-note: That has limited value against the authorities. In
+ civilized countries, they cannot force you to give up a crypto-key
+ anyways. In the US, the UK and dictatorships around the world,
+ they can force you to give up the keys (using imprisonment or worse
+ to pressure you), and in the worst case, they only need a
+ nebulous "suspicion" about the presence of encrypted data. My
+ advice is to either be ready to give up the keys or to not have
+ encrypted data when traveling to those countries, especially when
+ crossing the borders.
+
+ Disadvantages are that you do not have all the nice features that
+ the LUKS metadata offers, like multiple passphrases that can be
+ changed, the cipher being stored in the metadata, anti-forensic
+ properties like key-slot diffusion and salts, etc..
+
+ LUKS format uses a metadata header and 8 key-slot areas that are
+ being placed ath the begining of the disk, see below under "What
+ does the LUKS on-disk format looks like?". The passphrases are used
+ to decryt a single master key that is stored in the anti-forensic
+ stripes.
+
+ Advantages are a higher usability, automatic configuration of
+ non-default crypto parameters, defenses against low-entropy
+ passphrases like salting and iterated PBKDF2 passphrase hashing,
+ the ability to change passhrases, and others.
+
+ Disadvantages are that it is readily obvious there is encrypted
+ data on disk (but see side note above) and that damage to the
+ header or key-slots usually results in permanent data-loss. See
+ below under "6. Backup and Data Recovery" on how to reduce that
+ risk. Also the sector numbers get shifted by the length of the
+ header and key-slots and there is a loss of that size in capacity
+ (1MB+4096B for defaults and 2MB for the most commonly used
+ non-default XTS mode).
+
+
* Can I encrypt an already existing, non-empty partition to use LUKS?
There is no converter, and it is not really needed. The way to do
* How do I use LUKS with a loop-device?
- Just the same as with any block device. If you want, for example,
- to use a 100MiB file as LUKS container, do something like this:
+ This can be very handy for experiments. Setup is just the same as
+ with any block device. If you want, for example, to use a 100MiB
+ file as LUKS container, do something like this:
head -c 100M /dev/zero > luksfile # create empty file
losetup /dev/loop0 luksfile # map luksfile to /dev/loop0
new key-slot.
+ * Encrytion on top of RAID or the other way round?
+
+ Unless you have special needs, place encryption between RAID and
+ filesystem, i.e. encryption on top of RAID. You can do it the other
+ way round, but you have to be aware that you then need to give the
+ pasphrase for each individual disk and RAID autotetection will not
+ work anymore. Therefore it is better to encrypt the RAID device,
+ e.g. /dev/dm0 .
+
+
* How do I read a dm-crypt key from file?
Note that the file will still be hashed first, just like keyboard
As far as I know it does (but I may be wrong), but please note that
these "guarantees" are far weaker than they appear to be. For
- example, you not not get a hard flush to disk surface even on a
+ example, you may not get a hard flush to disk surface even on a
call to fsync. In addition, the HDD itself may do independent
write reordering. Some other things can go wrong as well. The
filesystem developers are aware of these problems and typically
However, this operation will not change volume key iteration count
(MK iterations in output of "cryptsetup luksDump"). In order to
change that, you will have to backup the data in the LUKS
- container, luksFormat on the slow machine and restore the data.
- Note that in the original LUKS specification this value was fixed
- to 10, but it is now derived from the PBKDF2 benchmark as well and
- set to iterations in 0.125 sec or 1000, whichever is larger.
+ container (i.e. your encrypted data), luksFormat on the slow
+ machine and restore the data. Note that in the original LUKS
+ specification this value was fixed to 10, but it is now derived
+ from the PBKDF2 benchmark as well and set to iterations in 0.125
+ sec or 1000, whichever is larger. Also note that MK iterations
+ are not very security relevant. But as each key-slot already takes
+ 1 second, spending the additional 0.125 seconds really does not
+ matter.
* "blkid" sees a LUKS UUID and an ext2/swap UUID on the same device.
ciphers. With the usual modes in cryptsetup (CBC, ESSIV, XTS), you
get up to a completely changed 512 byte block per bit error. A
corrupt block causes a lot more havoc than the occasionally
- flipped single bit and can result various obscure errors.
+ flipped single bit and can result in various obscure errors.
- Note however that a verify run on copying between encrypted or
- unencrypted devices can also show you corruption when the copying
- itself did not report any problems. If you find defect RAM, assume
- all backups and copied data to be suspect, unless you did a verify.
+ Note, that a verify run on copying between encrypted or
+ unencrypted devices will reliably detect corruption, even when the
+ copying itself did not report any problems. If you find defect
+ RAM, assume all backups and copied data to be suspect, unless you
+ did a verify.
* How do I test RAM?
5. Security Aspects
+ * Is LUKS insecure? Everybody can see I have encrypted data!
+
+ In practice it does not really matter. In most civilized countries
+ you can just refuse to hand over the keys, no harm done. In some
+ countries they can force you to hand over the keys, if they suspect
+ encryption. However the suspicion is enough, they do not have to
+ prove anything. This is for practical reasons, as even the presence
+ of a header (like the LUKS header) is not enough to prove that you
+ have any keys. It might have been an experiment, for example. Or it
+ was used as encrypted swap with a key from /dev/random. So they
+ make you prove you do not have encrypted data. Of course that is
+ just as impossible as the other way round.
+
+ This means that if you have a large set of random-looking data,
+ they can already lock you up. Hidden containers (encryption hidden
+ within encryption), as possible with Truecrypt, do not help
+ either. They will just assume the hidden container is there and
+ unless you hand over the key, you will stay locked up. Don't have
+ a hidden container? Though luck. Anybody could claim that.
+
+ Still, if you are concerned about the LUKS header, use plain
+ dm-crypt with a good passphrase. See also Section 2, "What is the
+ difference between "plain" and LUKS format?"
+
+
* Should I initialize (overwrite) a new LUKS/dm-crypt partition?
If you just create a filesystem on it, most of the old data will
* How do I securely erase a LUKS (or other) partition?
For LUKS, if you are in a desperate hurry, overwrite the LUKS
- header and key-slot area. This means overwriting the 1'052'672
- bytes, i.e. at 1MiB + 4096 of the LUKS partition. A single
- overwrite with zeros should be enough. If you anticipate being in a
- desperate hurry, prepare the command beforehand. Example with
- /dev/sde1 as the LUKS partition:
+ header and key-slot area. This means overwriting the first
+ (keyslots x stripes x keysize) + offset bytes. For the default
+ parameters, this is the 1'052'672 bytes, i.e. 1MiB + 4096 of the
+ LUKS partition. For 512 bit key length (e.g. for aes-xts-plain with
+ 512 bit key) this is 2MiB. (The diferent offset stems from
+ differences in the sector alignment of the key-slots.) If in doubt,
+ just be generous and overwrite the first 10MB or so, it will likely
+ still be fast enough. A single overwrite with zeros should be
+ enough. If you anticipate being in a desperate hurry, prepare the
+ command beforehand. Example with /dev/sde1 as the LUKS partition
+ and default parameters:
head -c 1052672 /dev/zero > /dev/sde1; sync
possibly still insecure as SSD technology is not fully understood
in this regard. Still, due to the anti-forensic properties of the
LUKS key-slots, a single overwrite of an SSD or FLASH drive could
- be enough. If in doubt, use physical destruction in addition. Keep
- in mind to also erase all backups.
+ be enough. If in doubt, use physical destruction in addition. Here
+ is a link to some current reseach results on erasing SSDs and FLASH
+ drives:
+ http://www.usenix.org/events/fast11/tech/full_papers/Wei.pdf
+
+ Keep in mind to also erase all backups.
Example for a zero-overwrite erase of partition sde1 done with
dd_rescue:
to the last stage ("Acceptance") and think about what to do now.
There is one exception that I know of: If your LUKS container is
still open, then it may be possible to extract the master key from
- the running system. Ask on the mailing-list on how to do that and
- make sure nobody switches off the machine.
+ the running system. See Item "How do I recover the master key from
+ a mapped LUKS container?" in Section "Backup and Data Recovery".
* What is a "salt"?
* Is LUKS secure with a low-entropy (bad) passphrase?
+ Note: You should only use the 94 printable characters from 7 bit
+ ASCII code to prevent your passphrase from failing when the
+ character encoding changes, e.g. because of a system upgrade, see
+ also the note at the very start of this FAQ under "WARNINGS".
+
This needs a bit of theory. The quality of your passphrase is
directly related to its entropy (information theoretic, not
thermodynamic). The entropy says how many bits of "uncertainty" or
days on a single CPU and is entirely feasible. To put that into
perspective, using a number of Amazon EC2 High-CPU Extra Large
instances (each gives about 8 real cores), this tests costs
- currently about $48, but can be made to run arbitrarily fast.
+ currently about 50USD/EUR, but can be made to run arbitrarily fast.
On the other hand, choosing 1.5 lines from, say, the Wheel of Time
is in itself not more secure, but the book selection adds quite a
0.0001 seconds on a modern CPU.
Example 2: The user did a bit better and has 32 chars of English
- text. That would give use about 32 bits of entropy. With 1 second
+ text. That would be about 32 bits of entropy. With 1 second
iteration, that means an attacker on the same CPU needs around 136
years. That is pretty impressive for such a weak passphrase.
Without the iterations, it would be more like 50 days on a modern
this danger significantly.
+ * What about iteration count with plain dm-crypt?
+
+ Simple: There is none. There is also no salting. If you use plain
+ dm-crypt, the only way to be secure is to use a high entropy
+ passphrase. If in doubt, use LUKS instead.
+
+
* Is LUKS with default parameters less secure on a slow CPU?
Unfortunately, yes. However the only aspect affected is the
6. Backup and Data Recovery
+ * Why do I need Backup?
+
+ First, disks die. The rate for well-treated (!) disk is about 5%
+ per year, which is high enough to worry about. There is some
+ indication that this may be even worse for some SSDs. This applies
+ both to LUKS and plain dm-crypt partitions.
+
+ Second, for LUKS, if anything damages the LUKS header or the
+ key-stripe area then decrypting the LUKS device can become
+ impossible. This is a frequent occuurence. For example an
+ accidental format as FAT or some software overwriting the first
+ sector where it suspects a partition boot sector typically makes a
+ LUKS partition permanently inacessible. See more below on LUKS
+ header damage.
+
+ So, data-backup in some form is non-optional. For LUKS, you may
+ also want to store a header backup in some secure location. This
+ only needs an update if you change passphrases.
+
+
+ * How do I backup a LUKS header?
+
+ While you could just copy the appropriate number of bytes from the
+ start of the LUKS partition, the best way is to use command option
+ "luksHeaderBackup" of cryptsetup. This protects also against
+ errors when non-standard parameters have been used in LUKS
+ partition creation. Example:
+
+
+ cryptsetup luksHeaderBackup --header-backup-file h /dev/mapper/c1
+
+ To restore, use the inverse command, i.e.
+
+ cryptsetup luksHeaderRestore --header-backup-file h /dev/mapper/c1
+
+
+ * How do I backup a LUKS or dm-crypt partition?
+
+ There are two options, a sector-image and a plain file or
+ filesystem backup of the contents of the partition. The sector
+ image is already encrypted, but cannot be compressed and contains
+ all empty space. The filesystem backup can be compressed, can
+ contain only part of the encrypted device, but needs to be
+ encrypted separately if so desired.
+
+ A sector-image will contain the whole partition in encrypted form,
+ for LUKS the LUKS header, the keys-slots and the data area. It can
+ be done under Linux e.g. with dd_rescue (for a direct image copy)
+ and with "cat" or "dd". Example:
+
+ cat /dev/sda10 > sda10.img
+ dd_rescue /dev/sda10 sda10.img
+
+ You can also use any other backup software that is capable of making
+ a sector image of a partition. Note that compression is
+ ineffective for encrypted data, hence it does not make sense to
+ use it.
+
+ For a filesystem backup, you decrypt and mount the encrypted
+ partition and back it up as you would a normal filesystem. In this
+ case the backup is not encrypted, unless your encryption method
+ does that. For example you can encrypt a backup with "tar" as
+ follows with GnuPG:
+
+ tar cjf - <path> | gpg --cipher-algo AES -c - > backup.tbz2.gpg
+
+ And verify the backup like this if you are at "path":
+
+ cat backup.tbz2.gpg | gpg - | tar djf -
+
+ Note: Allways verify backups, especially encrypted ones.
+
+ In both cases GnuPG will ask you interactively for your symmetric
+ key. The verify will only output errors. Use "tar dvjf -" to get
+ all comparison results. To make sure no data is written to disk
+ unencrypted, turn off swap if it is not encrypted before doing the
+ backup.
+
+ You can of course use different or no compression and you can use
+ an asymmetric key if you have one and have a backup of the secret
+ key that belongs to it.
+
+ A second option for a filestem-level backup that can be used when
+ the backup is also on local disk (e.g. an external USB drive) is
+ to use a LUKS container there and copy the files to be backed up
+ between both mounted containers. Also see next item.
+
+
+ * Do I need a backup of the full partition? Would the header and
+ key-slots not be enough?
+
+ Backup protects you against two things: Disk loss or corruption
+ and user error. By far the most questions on the dm-crypt mailing
+ list about how to recover a damaged LUKS partition are related
+ to user error. For example, if you create a new filesystem on a
+ LUKS partition, chances are good that all data is lost
+ permanently.
+
+ For this case, a header+key-slot backup would often be enough. But
+ keep in mind that a well-treated (!) HDD has roughly a failure
+ risk of 5% per year. It is highly advisable to have a complete
+ backup to protect against this case.
+
+
+ * *What do I need to backup if I use "decrypt_derived"?
+
+ This is a script in Debian, intended for mounting /tmp or swap with
+ a key derived from the master key of an already decrypted device.
+ If you use this for an device with data that should be persistent,
+ you need to make sure you either do not lose access to that master
+ key or have a backup of the data. If you derive from a LUKS
+ device, a header backup of that device would cover backing up the
+ master key. Keep in mind that this does not protect against disk
+ loss.
+
+ Note: If you recreate the LUKS header of the device you derive from
+ (using luksFormat), the master key changes even if you use the same
+ passphrase(s) and you will not be able to decrypt the derived
+ device with the new LUKS header.
+
+
* Does a backup compromise security?
- Depends on how you do it. First, a backup is non-optional with
- encrypted data just the same way it is with non-encrypted data.
- Disks do break and they do not care whether they make plain or
- encrypted data inaccessible. As a gideline, a well-treated HDD (!)
- breaks with about 5% probability per year. This means everybody
- will be hit sooner or later.
+ Depends on how you do it. However if you do not have one, you are
+ going to eventually lose your encrypted data.
- However there are risks introduced by backups. For example if you
+ There are risks introduced by backups. For example if you
change/disable a key-slot in LUKS, a binary backup of the partition
will still have the old key-slot. To deal with this, you have to
- be able to change the key-slot on the backup as well, or use a
- different set-up. One option is to have a different passphrase on
- the backup and to make the backup with both containers open.
- Another one is to make a backup of the original, opened container
- to a single file, e.g. with tar, and to encrypt that file with
- public-key-cryptography, e.g. with GnuPG. You can then keep the
- secret key in a safe place, because it is only used to decrypt a
- backup. The key the backup is encrypted with can be stored without
- special security measures, as long as an attacker cannot replace
- it with his own key.
+ be able to change the key-slot on the backup as well, securely
+ erase the backup or do a filesystem-level backup instead of a binary
+ one.
If you use dm-crypt, backup is simpler: As there is no key
management, the main risk is that you cannot wipe the backup when
should consist of forgetting the passphrase and that you can do
without actual access to the backup.
- In both cases, there is an additional (usually small) risk: An
- attacker can see how many sectors and which ones have been changed
- since the backup. This is not possible with the public-key method
- though.
+ In both cases, there is an additional (usually small) risk with
+ binary backups: An attacker can see how many sectors and which
+ ones have been changed since the backup. To prevent this, use a
+ filesystem level backup methid that encrypts the whole backup in
+ one go, e.g. as described above with tar and GnuPG.
- My personal advice is to use one USB disk (low value date) or
+ My personal advice is to use one USB disk (low value data) or
three disks (high value data) in rotating order for backups, and
- either use different passphrases or keep them easily accessible
- in case you need to disable a key-slot. If you do network-backup
- or tape-backup, I strongly recommend to go the public-key path,
- especially as you typically cannot reliably delete data in these
- scenarios. (Well, you can burn the tape if it is under your
- control...)
+ either use independent LUKS partitions on them, or use encrypted
+ backup with tar and GnuPG.
+
+ If you do network-backup or tape-backup, I strongly recommend to
+ go the filesystem backup path with independent encryption, as you
+ typically cannot reliably delete data in these scenarios,
+ especially in a cloud setting. (Well, you can burn the tape if it
+ is under your control...)
* What happens if I overwrite the start of a LUKS partition or damage
damage the key-slots in part or in full. See also last item.
+ * How do I recover the master key from a mapped LUKS container?
+
+ This is typically only needed if you managed to damage your LUKS
+ header, but the container is still mapped, i.e. "luksOpen"ed.
+
+ WARNING: This exposes the master key of the LUKS container. Note
+ that both ways to recreate a LUKS header with the old master key
+ described below will write the master key to disk. Unless you are
+ sure you have securely erased it afterwards, e.g. by writing it to
+ an encrypted partition, RAM disk or by erasing the filesystem you
+ wrote it to by a complete overwrite, you should change the master
+ key afterwards. Changing the master key requires a full data
+ backup, luksFormat and then restore of the backup.
+
+ First, there is a script by Milan that tries to automatize the
+ whole process, including generating a new LUKS header with the old
+ master key:
+
+http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/source/browse/trunk/misc/luks-header-from-active
+
+ You can also do this manually. Here is how:
+
+ - Get the master key from the device mapper. This is done by the
+ following command. Substitute c5 for whatever you mapped to:
+
+ # dmsetup table --target crypt --showkey /dev/mapper/c5
+ Result:
+ 0 200704 crypt aes-cbc-essiv:sha256
+ a1704d9715f73a1bb4db581dcacadaf405e700d591e93e2eaade13ba653d0d09
+ 0 7:0 4096
+
+ The result is actually one line, wrapped here for clarity. The long
+ hex string is the master key.
+
+ - Convert the master key to a binary file representation. You can
+ do this manually, e.g. with hexedit. You can also use the tool
+ "xxd" from vim like this:
+
+ echo "a1704d9....53d0d09" | xxd -r -p > master_key
+
+ - Do a luksFormat to create a new LUKS header. Unmapthe device
+ before you do that (luksClose). Replace \dev\dsa10 with the device
+ the LUKS container is on:
+
+ cryptsetup luksFormat --master-key-file=master_key \dev\sda10
+
+ Note that if the container was created with other than the default
+ settings of the cryptsetup version you are using, you need to give
+ additional parameters specifying the deviations. If in doubt, just
+ do the first step, keep the whole result safe and try with the
+ script by Milan. It does recover the other parameters as well.
+
+ Side note: This is the way the decrypt_derived script gets at the
+ master key. It just omits the conversion and hashes the master key
+ string.
+
+
* What does the on-disk structure of dm-crypt look like?
There is none. dm-crypt takes a block device and gives encrypted
Header and key-slot descriptors fill the first 592 bytes. The
key-slot size depends on the creation parameters, namely on the
- number of anti-forensic stripes and on key block alignment.
+ number of anti-forensic stripes, key material offset and master
+ key size.
- With 4000 stripes (the default), each key-slot is a bit less than
+ With the default parameters, each key-slot is a bit less than
128kiB in size. Due to sector alignment of the key-slot start,
that means the key block 0 is at offset 0x1000-0x20400, key
block 1 at offset 0x21000-0x40400, and key block 7 at offset
padded with zeros. Never used key-slots are filled with what the
disk originally contained there, a key-slot removed with
"luksRemoveKey" or "luksKillSlot" gets filled with 0xff. Start of
- bulk data (with the default 4000 stripes and 8 key-slots) is at
- 0x101000, i.e. at 1'052'672 bytes, i.e. at 1MiB + 4096 bytes from
- the start of the partition. This is also the value given by
- command "luksDump" with "Payload offset: 2056", just multiply by
- the sector size (512 bytes). Incidentally, "luksHeaderBackup"
- dumps exactly the first 1'052'672 bytes to file and
+ bulk data is at 0x101000, i.e. at 1'052'672 bytes, i.e. at 1MiB
+ + 4096 bytes from the start of the partition. This is also the
+ value given by command "luksDump" with "Payload offset: 2056",
+ just multiply by the sector size (512 bytes). Incidentally,
+ "luksHeaderBackup" for a LUKS container created with default
+ parameters dumps exactly the first 1'052'672 bytes to file and
"luksHeaderRestore" restores them.
+ For non-default parameters, you have to figure out placement
+ yourself. "luksDump" helps. For the most common non-default
+ settings, namely aes-xts-plain with 512 bit key, the offsets are:
+ 1st keyslot 0x1000-0x3f800, 2nd keyslot 0x40000-0x7e000, 3rd
+ keyslot 0x7e000-0xbd800, ..., and start of bulk data at 0x200000.
+
The exact specification of the format is here:
http://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/wiki/Specification
- * How do I backup a LUKS header?
+ * I think this is overly complicated. Is there an alternative?
- While you could just copy the appropriate number of bytes from the
- start of the LUKS partition, the best way is to use command option
- "luksHeaderBackup" of cryptsetup. This protects also against
- errors when non-standard parameters have been used in LUKS
- partition creation. Example:
+ Not really. Encryption comes at a price. You can use plain
+ dm-crypt to simplify things a bit. It does not allow multiple
+ passphrases, but on the plus side, it has zero on disk description
+ and if you overwrite some part of a plain dm-crypt partition,
+ exactly the overwritten parts are lost (rounded up to sector
+ borders).
-
- cryptsetup luksHeaderBackup --header-backup-file h /dev/mapper/c1
-
- To restore, use the inverse command, i.e.
- cryptsetup luksHeaderRestore --header-backup-file h /dev/mapper/c1
-
+7. Interoperability with other Disk Encryption Tools
- * How do I backup a LUKS partition?
- You do a sector-image of the whole partition. This will contain
- the LUKS header, the keys-slots and the data ares. It can be done
- under Linux e.g. with dd_rescue (for a direct image copy) and with
- "cat" or "dd". Example:
+ * What is this section about?
- cat /dev/sda10 > sda10.img
- dd_rescue /dev/sda10 sda10.img
-
- You can also use any other backup software that is capable of making
- a sector image of a partition. Note that compression is
- ineffective for encrypted data, hence it does not make sense to
- use it.
+ Cryptsetup for plain dm-crypt can be used to access a number of
+ on-disk formats created by tools like loop-aes patched into
+ losetup. This somtimes works and sometimes does not. This section
+ collects insights into what works, what does not and where more
+ information is required.
+ Additional information may be found in the mailing-list archives,
+ mentioned at the start of this FAQ document. If you have a
+ solution working that is not yet documented here and think a wider
+ audience may be intertested, please email the FAQ maintainer.
- * Do I need a backup of the full partition? Would the header and
- key-slots not be enough?
- Backup protects you against two things: Disk loss or corruption
- and user error. By far the most questions on the dm-crypt mailing
- list about how to recover a damaged LUKS partition are related
- to user error. For example, if you create a new filesystem on a
- LUKS partition, chances are good that all data is lost
- permanently.
+ * loop-aes: General observations.
- For this case, a header+key-slot backup would often be enough. But
- keep in mind that a well-treated (!) HDD has roughly a failure
- risk of 5% per year. It is highly advisable to have a complete
- backup to protect against this case.
+ One problem is that there are different versions of losetup around.
+ loop-aes is a patch for losetup. Possible problems and deviations
+ from cryptsetup option syntax include:
+ - Offsets specifed in bytes (cryptsetup: 512 byte sectors)
- * Are there security risks from a backup of the LUKS header or a
- whole LUKS partition?
+ - The need to specify an IV offset
- Yes. One risk is that if you remove access rights for specific
- key-slots by deleting their contents, the data can still be
- accessed with invalidated passphrase and the backup. The other
- risk is that if you erase a LUKS partition, a backup could still
- grant access, especially if you only erased the LUKS header and
- not the whole partition.
+ - Encryption mode needs specifying (e.g. "-c twofish-cbc-plain")
+ - Key size needs specifying (e.g. "-s 128" for 128 bit keys)
- * I think this is overly complicated. Is there an alternative?
+ - Passphrase hash algorithm needs specifying
+
+ Also note that because plain dm-crypt and loop-aes format does not
+ have metadata, autodetection, while feasible in most cases, would
+ be a lot of work that nobody really wants to do. If you still have
+ the old set-up, using a verbosity option (-v) on mapping with the
+ old tool or having a look into the system logs after setup could
+ give you the information you need.
- Yes, you can use plain dm-crypt. It does not allow multiple
- passphrases, but on the plus side, it has zero on disk description
- and if you overwrite some part of a plain dm-crypt partition,
- exactly the overwritten parts are lost (rounded up to sector
- borders).
+ * loop-aes patched into losetup on debian 5.x, kernel 2.6.32
+
+ In this case, the main problem seems to be that this variant of
+ losetup takes the offset (-o option) in bytes, while cryptsetup
+ takes it in sectors of 512 bytes each. Example: The losetupp
+ command
+
+ losetup -e twofish -o 2560 /dev/loop0 /dev/sdb1
+ mount /dev/loop0 mountpoint
+
+ translates to
+
+ cryptsetup create -c twofish -o 5 --skip 5 e1 /dev/sdb1
+ mount /dev/mapper/e1 mountpoint
+
+
+ * loop-aes with 160 bit key
+
+ This seems to be sometimes used with twofish and blowfish and
+ represents a 160 bit ripemed160 hash output padded to 196 bit key
+ length. It seems the corresponding options for cryptsetup are
+
+ --cipher twofish-cbc-null -s 192 -h ripemd160:20
+
-7. Issues with Specific Versions of cryptsetup
+8. Issues with Specific Versions of cryptsetup
* When using the create command for plain dm-crypt with cryptsetup
projects / platform / upstream / cryptsetup.git / blobdiff