Has anyone tried TrueCrypt?

Paul Ciszek

I would like to hear feedback from people who have tried TrueCrypt under
Ubuntu. Did it work well, and is it something that a Unix ignoramous
could install themselves?

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Dirk T. Verbeek

Paul Ciszek schreef:
> I would like to hear feedback from people who have tried TrueCrypt under
> Ubuntu. Did it work well, and is it something that a Unix ignoramous
> could install themselves?
>
I use it since a couple of years, it works fine both on Windows and Linux.
Because of this cross platform support it has fully replaced my (paid
for) install of PGP on Windows.
The only drawback I see is that you have to recompile every time you
install a major number upgrade of the kernel.
But when you, after a kernel upgrade, have the time you can just wait a
few weeks until the .deb is updated.
I suggest to also install a GUI front end like tcgui, a (KDE)
Kommander-editor script or Forcefield for Gnome.

In case of problems installing or using it just come back here
Or go to the Truecrypt forum.

Nomen Nescio

Paul Ciszek wrote:

> I would like to hear feedback from people who have tried TrueCrypt
> under Ubuntu. Did it work well, and is it something that a Unix
> ignoramous could install themselves?

Been using it for years. The latest (Gutsy) version installs and runs
flawlessly, where previous versions often had to be custom compiled on
each machine. There's also a couple usable GUI front ends available now
(ForceField, EasyCrypt, etc.).

I find shell scripts to mount various volumes works just fine myself. Of
course I almost always have a terminal window open anyway. YMMV.

There's also Scramdisk, or SD4L...

http://www.scramdisklinux.org/

SD4L will create/use Truecrypt volumes too, however last I knew there's
a (2 Gig?) size limit to all SD4L volumes. Personally, I like to keep a
"DVD-Sized" volume around for storing private documents and such so it
can be easily backed up. If you want to do this then SD4L was/is
useless to you.

>

Ian Pawson

Paul Ciszek wrote:
> I would like to hear feedback from people who have tried TrueCrypt under
> Ubuntu. Did it work well, and is it something that a Unix ignoramous
> could install themselves?
>
Yes, works fine even on a 64bit Gutsy<g>. A simple shell script can be
used for mounting. The only problem that I have found is that is not
possible to format a new volume to ext3, but as Gutsy can read/write
NTFS I use windoze to create/format large volumes (only a madman would
trust FAT).

Dirk T. Verbeek

Ian Pawson schreef:
> Paul Ciszek wrote:
>> I would like to hear feedback from people who have tried TrueCrypt under
>> Ubuntu. Did it work well, and is it something that a Unix ignoramous
>> could install themselves?
>>
> Yes, works fine even on a 64bit Gutsy<g>. A simple shell script can be
> used for mounting. The only problem that I have found is that is not
> possible to format a new volume to ext3, but as Gutsy can read/write
> NTFS I use windoze to create/format large volumes (only a madman would
> trust FAT).
Truecrypt can make a new container with either FAT or no file system.
When selecting none as file system it can be set to anything the OS can
handle after mounting the new container, that includes ext2/3.

Ian Pawson

Dirk T. Verbeek wrote:
> Ian Pawson schreef:
>> Paul Ciszek wrote:
>>> I would like to hear feedback from people who have tried TrueCrypt under
>>> Ubuntu. Did it work well, and is it something that a Unix ignoramous
>>> could install themselves?
>>>
>> Yes, works fine even on a 64bit Gutsy<g>. A simple shell script can be
>> used for mounting. The only problem that I have found is that is not
>> possible to format a new volume to ext3, but as Gutsy can read/write
>> NTFS I use windoze to create/format large volumes (only a madman would
>> trust FAT).
> Truecrypt can make a new container with either FAT or no file system.
> When selecting none as file system it can be set to anything the OS can
> handle after mounting the new container, that includes ext2/3.
Ah! Catch 22 - you can't format a mounted drive - unmount the truecrypt
container and you have nothing to format!!
If you have managed to crack this problem I would be most interested to
know how.

jebblue

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:51:18 +0000, Ian Pawson wrote:

> Ah! Catch 22 - you can't format a mounted drive - unmount the truecrypt
> container and you have nothing to format!! If you have managed to crack
> this problem I would be most interested to know how.

Would this work?

http://arcticlinux.blogspot.com/2007/11/truecrypt.html

--
// This is my opinion.

Dirk T. Verbeek

Ian Pawson schreef:
> Dirk T. Verbeek wrote:

>> Truecrypt can make a new container with either FAT or no file system.
>> When selecting none as file system it can be set to anything the OS can
>> handle after mounting the new container, that includes ext2/3.
> Ah! Catch 22 - you can't format a mounted drive - unmount the truecrypt
> container and you have nothing to format!!
> If you have managed to crack this problem I would be most interested to
> know how.

Ian you are absolutely right, I don't know how I came to this (wishful)
statement.
I do believe such a change is possible in windows but you'd be limited
to either FAT or NTFS.

The volumes I use are all FAT, a well understood and thus solid file
system but with limited capabilities.