I figured out how to set up an encrypted partition on Ubuntu the other day. There are a bunch of ways of doing it but I found this to be the simplest. It should work on Debian too, since all the relevant packages are Debian ones anyway. In my example I’m encrypting an LVM partition (logical volume), but it should work with any device, including removable USB keys (see end notes). UPDATE: This is broken in Edgy but I figured out a simple fix, see below.

Install the cryptsetup package from apt

# apt-get install cryptsetup

Choose a partition you’d like to encrypt.

In my case, I’m encrypting an LVM logical volume on a sata harddisk:

/dev/mapper/vg0-home

Format the partition as a “LUKS” partition

LUKS stands for Linux Unified Key Setup. Run the following command and enter a password when prompted:

# cryptsetup luksFormat -c aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 /dev/mapper/vg0-home

The option “-c aes-cbc-essiv:sha256” sets what cipher to use. It’s AES by standard, which is a good default but you want to enable ESSIV support explicitly because it’s rather important. With this option the crypto uses an different IV for each sector – protecting against known plaintext attacks and information leakage (such as the “watermarking attack).

Configure cryptsetup initscript

In /etc/crypttab add a line like this:

crypt-home    /dev/mapper/vg0-home             none    luks

“crypt-home” is the name of the device mapper node that will be created (in the /dev/mapper/ dir). This is the the device you’ll mount.

Make the filesystem

Firstly, execute the cryptsetup initscript (or reboot):

/etc/init.d/cryptdisks start

This asks for your password and (if successful) creates the /dev/mapper/crypt-home device.
Now init your filesystem of choice (in this example, ext3):

mkfs.ext3 /dev/mapper/crypt-home

Configure fstab to automount the partition

Add a line to /etc/fstab:

/dev/mapper/crypt-home /home   ext3    defaults   0       2

Obviously, mounting this won’t work unless the cryptdisks initscript has been executed, but this happens in the correct order on boot.

Reboot!

On boot, you’ll be prompted for the password quite early on in the boot process. The prompt should time out after 180 seconds if you don’t type anything (handy for a server).

After you’ve typed the correct password, the device mapper device is created and then the unencrypted partition is mounted shortly after (alongside all the other partitions, as usual).

UPDATE: LUKS on boot broken in Edgy
This worked fine for me with Dapper, but an upgrade to Edgy broke it. It’s been reported as a bug on launchpad but I figured out a simple fix in the mean time:

Change line 294 in /lib/cryptsetup/cryptdisks.functions from:

$CRYPTCMD $PARAMS luksOpen $src $dst < &1

to:

$CRYPTCMD $PARAMS luksOpen $src $dst < /dev/console

Now it jumps to console from splash on boot and asks for password.

Encrypted Swap

Remember, data from your encrypted partition could end up on disk in your unencrypted swap partition. Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, this probably isn’t desirable. Set your swap partition to be stored in another encrypted device using LUKS. Use /dev/random as the keyfile and it’ll use a random password for encryption on every boot. I expect this will break hibernate support though.

USB keys and other removable devices

If you create a LUKS partition on a removable device (such as a USB key), the HAL daemon will spot that it’s LUKS and automatically handle all the cryptsetup stuff (including a nice Gnome password box). In this case, don’t setup the crypttab or fstab. Instead:

  1. After creating the LUKS partition, open it manually (you’ll be prompted for the password): 
    cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdusbdiskdevicename1 luks-temp
  2. Create the filesystem: 
    mkfs.ext3 /dev/mapper/luks-temp
  3. Manually close the LUKS partition: 
    cryptsetup luksClose luks-temp
  4. Now just eject/unplug the device then reinsert it and you’ll be asked for the password!

These encrypted removable devices are even supported on Windows (see FreeOFTE) but you’ll obviously need to use a Windows compatible file system, like FAT32 or NTFS rather than EXT3).