eCryptfs

<h2 id="details">Details</h2>
<p>The eCryptfs package has been included in <a href="/facts/Ubuntu_(operating_system)/0WDd7hkb">Ubuntu</a> since version 9.04 to implement Ubuntu's encrypted <a href="/facts/Home_directory/cQpQ4nvp">home directory</a> feature,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> but is now deprecated<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a>
</p><p>eCryptfs is derived from Erez Zadok's Cryptfs.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> It uses a variant of the <a href="/facts/OpenPGP/4BELG9BW">OpenPGP</a> file format for encrypted data, extended to allow <a href="/facts/Random_access/1cxrCk3r">random access</a>, storing cryptographic <a href="/facts/Metadata/qt35z79C">metadata</a> (including a per-file randomly generated <a href="/facts/Session_key/aDLpKNVQ">session key</a>) with each individual file.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a>
</p><p>It also encrypts file and directory names which makes them internally longer (average one third). The reason is it needs to <a href="/facts/Uuencoding/lEjGENqK">uuencode</a> the encrypted names to eliminate unwanted characters in the resulting name.
This lowers the maximum usable byte name length of the original file system entry depending on the used file system (this can lead to four times fewer characters for example for Asian utf-8 file names).
</p>
<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Disk_encryption/v7E50jGw">Disk encryption</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Disk_encryption_software/AxhTMVE4">Disk encryption software</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Comparison_of_disk_encryption_software/8hF593RQ">Comparison of disk encryption software</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/EncFS/I6w2EHte">EncFS</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Dm-crypt/DpsfvyrW">dm-crypt</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/FileVault/1szS20zz">FileVault</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Encrypting_File_System/BCrXwfB5">Encrypting File System</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<ul><li><a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ECryptfs">ArchWiki: System Encryption with eCryptfs</a></li>
<li><a href="https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/dustinkirkland/ecryptfs-utils/blob/master/doc/ecryptfs-faq.html">eCryptfs FAQ</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/docs/cryptfs/cryptfs.html">Cryptfs: A Stackable Vnode Level Encryption File System</a> (Zadok et al., 1999)</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>"About the project". 2012. Retrieved 2018-11-15. <a href="https://ecryptfs.org/about.html" target="_blank">https://ecryptfs.org/about.html</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>Halcrow, Michael Austin (2005). eCryptfs: An Enterprise-class Encrypted Filesystem for Linux (PDF). Proc. Linux Symposium. Vol. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-09-16. Retrieved 2020-04-10. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080916022422/http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2005/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20080916022422/http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2005/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>Ian Nicholson (2014-11-24). "Ubuntu CommunityHelpWiki: EncryptedHome". Retrieved 2018-11-15. <a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedHome" target="_blank">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedHome</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>Ian Nicholson (2014-11-24). "Ubuntu CommunityHelpWiki: EncryptedHome". Retrieved 2018-11-15. <a href="https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/security-ecryptfs" target="_blank">https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/security-ecryptfs</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:5"><p>"eCryptfs – Enterprise Cryptographic Filesystem". <a href="https://launchpad.net/ecryptfs/" target="_blank">https://launchpad.net/ecryptfs/</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:6"><p>Halcrow, Michael Austin (2005). eCryptfs: An Enterprise-class Encrypted Filesystem for Linux (PDF). Proc. Linux Symposium. Vol. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-09-16. Retrieved 2020-04-10. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080916022422/http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2005/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20080916022422/http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2005/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

eCryptfs open-in-new

eCryptfs