Access encrypted partition from Linux and Windows

2

Just to be clear, I'm a security noob.

I have a Linux (openSUSE Leap 42.1) and Windows (10). I made the home partition of the Linux encrypted but now I cannot access it from Windows. The only solution I found online was to install virtual machine on Windows, add something to the Linux to allow guests and only then access the files from VM-Linux. That doesn't satisfy me.

Another feature that I want to have is to force giving the password to the encrypted data on every access. For now, I have to give the password even before I log in so when I'm logged to Linux all strangers have access to my data unless I log out. And I want the data to be secure all the time.

Finally, I don't want to use external hard drives. I'll deal with encrypting my external hard drive after I solve this problem.

What would you suggest? Is that even possible or is external hard drive the only option?

user1

Posted 2016-05-23T09:28:55.303

Reputation: 135

@techraf No. My Linux partitions are in EXT4 so FreeOTFE won't work. I tried to install it, though and had big problems for which solutions are too risky. And even if it worked, it's no longer maintained so it's not very secure to use it. As for Ext2fsd, I already tried using it to open my partition but without success. The partition type is set as RAW instead of encrypted EXT4 and I can't do anything with it. – None – 2016-05-23T14:18:30.927

Answers

2

Imagine the HELL on EARTH that would be every time you have read/write access to your /home, you need to type your password in? A lot of programs rely on writing to that directory(browser, desktop applications, applications you compile and could be running from /home/<user>/bin...). If you really want something encrypted that you have to provide password at every access, it is better to use something like the new TrueCrypt. It's multiplatform.

About dm-crypt being acessible inside Windows, @techraf already answered pointing out other stackexchange answer.

And finally, if you dont wanna use external USB disks, just dont mount them. If you have some sort of automount configured, you will need to figure out WHAT automount technology is being used. If could be Gnome Automount, KDE automount or autofs.

user210242

Posted 2016-05-23T09:28:55.303

Reputation:

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  • I know that writing password on every access to /home would be a nightmare. I didn't say I wanted to have that - I just happened to had /home encrypted and I wanted to give password on every access to my data. That were 2 separate pieces of information. I knew that /home encryption is not what I needed.

  • TrueCrypt is a perfect solution for my problem. Thanks!

  • I didn't say I didn't want to use USB disks. Only that I didn't want it to be the solution for my problem as I wanted the data on my internal disk to be encrypted as well.

    • < – user1 – 2016-05-30T14:09:39.360

    Asked: 2016-05-23T09:28:55.303

    Viewed: 2 928 times

    Active: 2016-05-24T00:58:41.887