Arch Linux

Cbhihe

Member

Registered: 2017-04-09

Posts: 244

[SOLVED]Alternate encryptions on ext4, to keep syncing with dropbox?

dropbox v 55.4.171-1 from AUR

Hi,
after Nov 7, Dropbox announced that it will only support LUKS on ext4, client side. It specifically ruled out ecryptfs, but provided no other info.
They are not too forthcoming when (nicely) pressed for further details...
My question is whether anyone here knows whether (from Arch Wiki) EncFS and geocryptFS might be supported in addition to ext4 volumes. 
(I need to plan ahead for maintenance reasons and I am not certain this is the right forum for this post. Please advise, if so or not so or whatever.)
Cheers.

Last edited by Cbhihe (2018-09-28 19:58:03)

---

I like strawberries, therefore I'm not a bot.

eschwartz

Fellow

Registered: 2014-08-08

Posts: 4,097

Re: [SOLVED]Alternate encryptions on ext4, to keep syncing with dropbox?

I highly doubt any of these will work, since all three use actually different filesystem types. ecryptfs uses the ecryptfs filesystem kernel module, whereas the other two are FUSE filesystems. In all these cases, the underlying filesystem is *not* the explicit name "ext4".

I guess there is this as an LD_PRELOAD hack, so you can lie and say it is ext4 anyway: https://github.com/dimaryaz/dropbox_ext4/
Their stated reason for dropping all but ext4 support is "we need to know your filesystem supports xattrs", which has nothing to do with ext4 at all. But I guess you already know this is bogus...

...

More generally, ditch dropbox for something that isn't hateful to linux I guess, see e.g. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=239568

---

Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,307

Re: [SOLVED]Alternate encryptions on ext4, to keep syncing with dropbox?

I think ext4 in an encrypted luks volume should still be supported. What is unsupported is the file-based encryption built in in ext4 or other encryption that is on top of ext4. LUKS (and LVM) are working on the block-level and are practically invisible for the purposes of Dropbox.

https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-we … ts#desktop

Note: ecryptfs is not supported, but Dropbox will continue to sync with supported file systems that are encrypted via full disk encryption (e.g. LUKS)

Last edited by progandy (2018-09-28 16:40:05)

---

| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' | alias ENGLISH='LANG=C.UTF-8 ' |

Cbhihe

Member

Registered: 2017-04-09

Posts: 244

Re: [SOLVED]Alternate encryptions on ext4, to keep syncing with dropbox?

I highly doubt any of these will work, since all three use actually different filesystem types. ecryptfs uses the ecryptfs filesystem kernel module, whereas the other two are FUSE filesystems. In all these cases, the underlying filesystem is *not* the explicit name "ext4".

I guess there is this as an LD_PRELOAD hack, so you can lie and say it is ext4 anyway: https://github.com/dimaryaz/dropbox_ext4/

Ok, I don't mind going to fuse at all, but I'd be screwed anyway, because even considering the hack as a viable ...well ...  hack,  it would mean reinstalling 10s of machines' OSes  from the metal up with previous backup and later restore shenanigans. I don't think I would like spend my vacations doing that.... The same would occur for all those systems already mounted on ext4 but without LUKS.  So, same basic problem.

Their stated reason for dropping all but ext4 support is "we need to know your filesystem supports xattrs", which has nothing to do with ext4 at all. But I guess you already know this is bogus...

Yup. Course.

More generally, ditch dropbox for something that isn't hateful to linux I guess, see e.g. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=239568

I am now officially on the market for something other than Dropbox.  It would need to be free  for sync'ing up to a limit, with end to end encryption, but not client side encryption requirements, i.e. the way Dropbox has been up to now. Maybe seafile ... But that's another discussion.

Thanks all. I got my answer.

[CLOSED]

---

I like strawberries, therefore I'm not a bot.

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,426

Website

Re: [SOLVED]Alternate encryptions on ext4, to keep syncing with dropbox?

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

---

Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438