Arch Linux

m1sha

Member

Registered: 2009-04-23

Posts: 9

A Secure Setup - How would you do it?

I've been pondering for a while how best to set up my new laptop. I need something that encrypts all my files, and preferably my OS. In addition to this, some sort of user authentication, even when booting would be nice (/boot on a usb drive?). Of course I'll be running arch but I' might need to use other linuxes and maybe even a non-free OS at some point.

Googling produced a few candidates (TrueCrypt, dmcrypt) but I'd like to know how real people would/do secure a laptop. Any and all tips greatly appreciated.

rebugger

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-10-28

Posts: 229

Re: A Secure Setup - How would you do it?

I'm using dm-crypt on all my machines for root, home and swap partitions.
The speed is quite good and i didn't have any problems yet.
If you want to use dm-crypt, simply follow the wiki article: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sys … r_dm-crypt

With TrueCrypt i'm not really sure... on older versions the linux gui was very unstable, but i didn't have a look at the new one and it's possibilites in partition-encryption for linux.

If you simply want to encrypt some files, have a look at encfs - it mounts a "container" as a partition and encrypts on the fly. after unmounting you have your encrypted container. i think it's using aes.

Edit:
Ah, and remember: you should always store backups on other machines (of course you can encrypt these backups) - because data recovery with encryptet partitions isn't fun.

Last edited by rebugger (2009-06-03 16:34:40)

tkdfighter

Member

From: Switzerland

Registered: 2009-01-28

Posts: 126

Re: A Secure Setup - How would you do it?

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sys … r_dm-crypt

That's what I used. Works just fine, but it may be a bit slow on large file transfers if your CPU is a bit slow, like mine (Pentium M). I encrypted all partitions and have a USB stick with the key for the root partition. But I also have a passphrase and backups. Works well, so far.

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,237

Website

Re: A Secure Setup - How would you do it?

+1 for the above 2 suggestions.

I work for an IT security company so obviously if one of our laptops were to go missing, there would be a lot of risk. I haven't had any problems with it -- using it on my desktop and 2 laptops for over 6 months now.

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