Is there a simple way to tell if I'm using ecryptfs on my home directory? I tried running the ecryptfs-migrate-home
script a while ago, and it failed part way through. I assumed that it went back to using my old plain, unencrypted home, but I just noticed that /home/.ecryptfs/naught10t/.Private exists, and has lots of files in it...
3 Answers
If ecryptfs is being used, your home folder will be mounted. You can check if it is with this command:
df -T
When I run it, I get this result:
kalle@Kalle-PC:~$ df -T
Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 ext4 115376648 9002220 100513568 9% /
udev devtmpfs 2050188 4 2050184 1% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 824108 1128 822980 1% /run
none tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none tmpfs 2060264 900 2059364 1% /run/shm
/dev/sdb1 fuseblk 1953512444 1183183452 770328992 61% /media/x
/dev/sda2 ext4 861466440 138769200 678937216 17% /home
/home/kalle/.Private ecryptfs 861466440 138769200 678937216 17% /home/kalle
I have several drives on my system, but the last line is the relevant one. It shows that /home/kalle/.Private of type ecryptfs is mounted to /home/kalle, which is my home directory.
Run df -T
on your system and check the results.
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Am I right that if I unmount
/home/me/.Private
, then/home/me/
should be empty? (except for the.Private
folder?) Sep 24, 2012 at 0:24 -
It doesn't have to be, but if it is, then that means the unencrypted files in your home folder no longer exist, and you are using ecryptfs. If your files are still there, however, it would mean that the contents of your home were duplicated to ecryptfs, but not deleted from their original location. What is the case? Sep 24, 2012 at 13:42
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Looks like it's all good. Interesting thing though- I had to log out and log in as root, to check, and even though my user was logged out, the ecryptfs partition was still mounted - I had to manually unmount it. Doesn't seem very secure... Sep 24, 2012 at 23:20
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1I guess this is only meant to prevent people from reading data directly from the disk, which would bypass all the file permissions. It is good to know, though, that any other user with the right permissions can read your files after you have logged in. Sep 26, 2012 at 8:23
Type the command mount
into a terminal. This will list devices and their filesystem. Look for ecryptfs
.
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1While I understand what you're getting at, this answer would be useless for a beginner. Sep 24, 2012 at 0:23
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For beginners, run this: echo "Your home directory is $( mount | grep ecryptfs > /dev/null || echo 'not ' )encrypted." Aug 30, 2017 at 16:15
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However, @Kalle Elmér's answer is more future-proof, as it will reveal other programs which mount your home directory rather than it being a normal directory. Aug 30, 2017 at 16:18
I wanted to use fallocate in a script and found that I am still using ecryptfs on one of the machines I tested which failed, telling me that fallocate is not supported.
The code I implemented and shellchecked to detect this condition and use dd instead is this:
if $(grep -q -e "^${HOME}/.Private ${HOME} ecryptfs" "/proc/mounts"); then
echo 'eCryptfs detected!';
fi