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I have Windows 10 installed on my laptop and I want to install Ubuntu 14.04 in encrypted form so I can boot into a non encrypted Windows 10 or an encrypted Ubuntu 14.04.

I have booted into the laptop using an Ubuntu 14.04 live cd and this is what the current partitions look like:

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If I then start the Ubuntu 14.04 installation and select "something else" from the partition screen, I get this:

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What do I need to do to the unused space in order to install Ubuntu 14.04 in encrypted form?

I have read many existing questions, but find them very confusing.

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  • Do you just want to encrypt the home directories? If so, go ahead and install and check the option when it appears.
    – bain
    Jan 16, 2016 at 11:52

2 Answers 2

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If you want to perform a "full disk encryption" of your Ubuntu installation do the following:

  • Boot live cd
  • Open gparted
  • Create 3 partitions:
    • boot (ext2) - If you have Windows installed with UEFI, this can be skipped,
    • root (ext4),
    • swap (linux-swap)
  • Apply changes
  • Open terminal and sudo -i

  • Encrypt volumes root and swap

    cryptsetup luksFormat --cipher aes-xts-plain --key-size 512 --hash 
sha512 --iter-time 2000 /dev/sdax

  • Name the encrypted volumes

    cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 root
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda3 swap

  • Make an ext4 filesystem inside and a swap space

    mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/root
mkswap /dev/mapper/swap
  • Proceed with OS installation
  • Select Something else
  • Set boot, root and swap partitions (Select each partition, press Change and set the appropriate values)
  • Continue with installation. Press Install now.
  • After installation is finished choose Continue testing
  • Open terminal and sudo -i

  • Chroot Magic

    cd /mnt
mkdir root
mount /dev/mapper/root root
mount /dev/sda1 root/boot
chroot root
mount -t proc proc /proc
mount -t sysfs sys /sys
mount -o bind /dev root/dev

  • Block Device & Filesystem Tables

    nano /etc/crypttab

  • Open a second terminal

    sudo blkid

  • Enter the following content to the crypttab file

    root UUID= (find it from blkid) none luks
swap UUID= (find it from blkid) none luks,swap
  • Save and exit
  • Open the file /etc/fstab and check that it has the root and swap entries
  • Fix Hibernate and Update Init.

  • Open with nano /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume and make the following change

    RESUME=/dev/mapper/swap

  • Run in terminal the following command

    update-initramfs -u
exit

  • LUKS Header Backup. Open terminal and run the following commands

    cryptsetup luksHeaderBackup /dev/sda2 --header-backup-file /root/root.img
cryptsetup luksHeaderBackup /dev/sda3 --header-backup-file /root/swap.img
exit

The above guide was based on this

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    I am puzzled. It seems to me that you are setting sda2 and sda3 to root and swap respectively, but surely that would overwrite the OP's Windows partitions? And even before then, you suggest creating a new partition table — surely that will delete all existing partitions, thereby destroying the existing Windows partitions, even the Windows recovery partition? Unless I am totally confused, your suggestion will destroy the OP's Windows setup, which is exactly the opposite of what was wanted.
    – Paddy Landau
    Aug 11, 2016 at 13:35
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    The guide is meant to be generic so that it can be used in most of the cases with some alterations. You are correct, sda2 and sda3 should be replaced with the newly created partitions and of course no need to create a partition table, since one already exists.
    – cure
    Aug 16, 2016 at 11:05
  • -1 for broken Chroot magic.
    – David Foerster
    Dec 29, 2018 at 9:49
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I don't see any problems here, install Ubuntu normally on the unused space (you can do some partition stuff like choosing different partitions for different folders etc. but if you don't want to do that, it's ok), during the installation progress, there will be an option called "encrypt my home folder" or something like that, check it, and you're pretty much done.

Even easier you can just make Windows take all the space, and check the option "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows", and it will show a very foolproof interface to you.

I may be wrong here and this is not what you're asking, tho.

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    encrypt home folder will only encrypt the home folder, what if you want to protect /tmp ? /lib ? /usr/lib ? ...
    – Lilás
    Dec 2, 2016 at 15:25

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