[Mageia-dev] unable to mount encrypted partitions created with drakdisk

Wed Mar 21 08:41:00 CET 2012

2012/3/21 David W. Hodgins <davidwhodgins at gmail.com>:
+> On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:57:47 -0400, simple w8 <simplew8 at gmail.com> wrote:
+>
+>> Hi,
+>>
+>> I use sometimes to boo Windows, and if i need some file i use to mount
+>> my /home encrypted partition using FreeOTFE (or TrueCrypt) to access
+>> the files i need, but i saw today that the /home partition that was
+>> created in mageia is not possible to mount with FreeOTFE or TrueCrypt.
+>>
+>> But the /home partition created with mandriva drakdisk can be mounted
+>> with those 2 applications, so seams that Mageia drakdisk isnt doing
+>> something right.
+>
+>
+> That's likely a result of
+> https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3092
+>
+> With the default settings, cryptsetup uses cbc mode encryption,
+> which makes it much more likely that it can be cracked.
+>
+> See http://clemens.endorphin.org/nmihde/nmihde-A4-os.pdf
+> for an explanation of how this is done.
+>
+> In Mageia's diskdrake, the setting is overridden to use xts mode,
+> instead of cbc mode.
+>
+> If you prefer to use the less secure method, in order
+> to keep it compatible with the windows applications, you'll
+> have to re-encrypt it manually with
+> cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sd??.
+>
+> Don't forget to backup the data first, as this will erase that
+> device.
+>
+> Regards, Dave Hodgins
+
+Thanks for the clarification, and was a very good improvement :)
+
+But i think it would be better to have in diskdrake some option
+allowing the user to choose the cypher, since the default cypher used
+in cryptsetup and in other apps that support luks, is cbc, and this
+way diskdrake is putting it incompatible with remaning apps that
+support luks.
+
+This way the user could be informed about whats happening and also
+would have a choice, that would be great and would in fact increase
+diskdrake popularity.
+