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fscrypt is a high-level tool for the management of Linux filesystem encryption. fscrypt manages metadata, key generation, key wrapping, PAM integration, and provides a uniform interface for creating and modifying encrypted directories. For a small low-level tool that directly sets policies, see fscryptctl.

Note that the kernel part of fscrypt (which is integrated into filesystems such as ext4) is also sometimes referred to as "fscrypt". To avoid confusion, this documentation instead calls the kernel part "Linux filesystem encryption".

To use fscrypt, you must have a filesystem with encryption enabled and a kernel that supports reading/writing from that filesystem. Currently, ext4, F2FS, and UBIFS support Linux filesystem encryption. Ext4 has supported Linux filesystem encryption since v4.1, F2FS added support in v4.2, and UBIFS added support in v4.10. Other filesystems may add support for native encryption in the future. Filesystems may additionally require certain kernel configuration options to be set to use native encryption. See Runtime Dependencies.

Other encryption solutions

It is important to distinguish Linux filesystem encryption from two other encryption solutions: eCryptfs and dm-crypt.

Currently, dm-crypt encrypts an entire block device with a single master key. dm-crypt can be used with or without fscrypt. All filesystem data (including all filesystem metadata) is encrypted with this single key when using dm-crypt, while fscrypt only encrypts the filenames and file contents in a specified directory. Note that using both dm-crypt and fscrypt simultaneously will give the protections and benefits of both; however, this may cause a decrease in your performance, as file contents are encrypted twice.

One example of a reasonable setup could involve using dm-crypt with a TPM or Secure boot key, while using fscrypt for the contents of a home directory. This would still encrypt the entire drive, but would also tie the encryption of a user's personal documents to their passphrase.

On the other hand, eCryptfs is another form of filesystem encryption on Linux; it encrypts a filesystem directory with some key or passphrase. eCryptfs sits on top of an existing filesystem. This makes eCryptfs an alternative choice if your filesystem or kernel does not support native filesystem encryption.

Also note that fscrypt does not support or setup either eCryptfs or dm-crypt. For these tools, use ecryptfs-utils for eCryptfs or cryptsetup for dm-crypt.

Features

fscrypt is intended to improve upon the work in e4crypt by providing a more managed environment and handling more functionality in the background. fscrypt has a design document specifying its full architecture. See also the kernel documentation for Linux filesystem encryption.

Briefly, fscrypt deals with protectors and policies. Protectors represent some secret or information used to protect the confidentiality of your data. The three currently supported protector types are:

  1. Your login passphrase, through PAM. The included PAM module (pam_fscrypt.so) can automatically unlock login protectors when you log in. IMPORTANT: before using a login protector, follow Setting up for login protectors.

  2. A custom passphrase. This passphrase is hashed with Argon2id, by default calibrated to use all CPUs and take about 1 second.

  3. A raw key file. See Using a raw key protector.

These protectors are mutable, so the information can change without needing to update any of your encrypted directories.

Policies represent the actual key passed to the kernel. This "policy key" is immutable and policies are (usually) applied to a single directory. Protectors then protect policies, so that having one of the protectors for a policy is enough to get the policy key and access the data. Which protectors protect a policy can also be changed. This allows a user to change how a directory is protected without needing to reencrypt the directory's contents.

Concretely, fscrypt contains the following functionality:

  • fscrypt setup - Creates /etc/fscrypt.conf and the /.fscrypt directory
    • This is the only functionality which always requires root privileges
  • fscrypt setup MOUNTPOINT - Gets a filesystem ready for use with fscrypt
  • fscrypt encrypt DIRECTORY - Encrypts an empty directory
  • fscrypt unlock DIRECTORY - Unlocks an encrypted directory
  • fscrypt lock DIRECTORY - Locks an encrypted directory
  • fscrypt purge MOUNTPOINT - Locks all encrypted directories on a filesystem
  • fscrypt status [PATH] - Gets detailed info about filesystems or paths
  • fscrypt metadata - Manages policies or protectors directly

The following functionality is planned:

  • fscrypt backup - Manages backups of the fscrypt metadata
  • fscrypt recovery - Manages recovery keys for directories
  • fscrypt cleanup - Scans filesystem for unused policies/protectors

See the example usage section below or run fscrypt COMMAND --help for more information about each of the commands.

Building and Installing

fscrypt has a minimal set of build dependencies:

  • Go 1.11 or higher. Older versions may work but they are not tested or supported.
  • A C compiler (gcc or clang)
  • make
  • Headers for libpam. Install them with the appropriate package manager:
    • Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install libpam0g-dev
    • Red Hat: sudo yum install pam-devel
    • Arch: pam package (usually installed by default)

Once all the dependencies are installed, you can get the repository by running:

go get -d github.com/google/fscrypt/...

Running make in $GOPATH/src/github.com/google/fscrypt builds the executable (fscrypt) and PAM module (pam_fscrypt.so) in the bin/ directory. Use make bin/fscrypt or make bin/pam_fscrypt.so to build only one.

Running sudo make install installs fscrypt to /usr/local/bin, pam_fscrypt.so to /usr/local/lib/security, and pam_fscrypt/config to /usr/local/share/pam-configs. Use make install-bin to only install fscrypt. Use make install-pam to only install the pam files.

See the Makefile for instructions on how to customize the build (e.g. installing to a custom location, using different build flags, building a static binary, etc ...)

Alternatively, if you only want to install the fscrypt binary to $GOPATH/bin, simply run:

go get github.com/google/fscrypt/cmd/fscrypt

Runtime Dependencies

To run, fscrypt needs the following libraries:

  • libpam.so (almost certainly already on your system)

In addition, fscrypt requires kernel support for encryption for your filesystem, and for some filesystems that a feature flag has been enabled in the on-disk filesystem superblock:

  • For ext4, the kernel must be v4.1 or later, and the kernel configuration must have either CONFIG_FS_ENCRYPTION=y (for kernels v5.1+) or CONFIG_EXT4_ENCRYPTION=y or =m (for older kernels). Also, the filesystem must have the encrypt feature flag enabled; see here for how to enable it.

  • For f2fs, the kernel must be v4.2 or later, and the kernel configuration must have either CONFIG_FS_ENCRYPTION=y (for kernels v5.1+) or CONFIG_F2FS_FS_ENCRYPTION=y (for older kernels). Also, the filesystem must have the encrypt feature flag enabled. It can be enabled at format time by mkfs.f2fs -O encrypt, or later by fsck.f2fs -O encrypt.

  • For UBIFS, the kernel must be v4.10 or later, and the kernel configuration must have either CONFIG_FS_ENCRYPTION=y (for kernels v5.1+) or CONFIG_UBIFS_FS_ENCRYPTION=y (for older kernels).

To check whether the needed option is enabled in your kernel, run:

zgrep -h ENCRYPTION /proc/config.gz /boot/config-$(uname -r) | sort | uniq

It is also recommended to use Linux kernel v5.4 or later, since this allows the use of v2 encryption policies. v2 policies have several security and usability improvements over v1 policies.

Be careful when using encryption on removable media, since filesystems with the encrypt feature cannot be mounted on systems with kernel versions older than the minimums listed above -- even to access unencrypted files!

If you configure fscrypt to use non-default features, other kernel prerequisites may be needed too. See Configuration file.

Configuration file

Running sudo fscrypt setup will create the configuration file /etc/fscrypt.conf if it doesn't already exist. It's a JSON file that looks like the following:

{
	"source": "custom_passphrase",
	"hash_costs": {
		"time": "52",
		"memory": "131072",
		"parallelism": "32"
	},
	"options": {
		"padding": "32",
		"contents": "AES_256_XTS",
		"filenames": "AES_256_CTS",
		"policy_version": "2"
	},
	"use_fs_keyring_for_v1_policies": false
}

The fields are:

  • "source" is the default source for new protectors. The choices are "pam_passphrase", "custom_passphrase", and "raw_key".

  • "hash_costs" describes how difficult the passphrase hashing is. By default, fscrypt setup calibrates the hashing to use all CPUs and take about 1 second. The --time option to fscrypt setup can be used to customize this time when creating the configuration file.

  • "options" are the encryption options to use for new encrypted directories:

    • "padding" is the number of bytes by which filenames are padded before being encrypted. The choices are "32", "16", "8", and "4". "32" is recommended.

    • "contents" is the algorithm used to encrypt file contents. The choices are "AES_256_XTS", "AES_128_CBC", and "Adiantum". Normally, "AES_256_XTS" is recommended.

    • "filenames" is the algorithm used to encrypt file names. The choices are "AES_256_CTS", "AES_128_CTS", and "Adiantum". Normally, "AES_256_CTS" is recommended.

      To use algorithms other than "AES_256_XTS" for contents and "AES_256_CTS" for filenames, the needed algorithm(s) may need to be enabled in the Linux kernel's cryptography API. For example, to use Adiantum, CONFIG_CRYPTO_ADIANTUM must be set. Also, not all combinations of algorithms are allowed; for example, "Adiantum" for contents can only be paired with "Adiantum" for filenames. See the kernel documentation for more details about the supported algorithms.

    • "policy_version" is the version of encryption policy to use. The choices are "1" and "2". If unset, "1" is assumed. Directories created with policy version "2" are only usable on kernel v5.4 or later, but are preferable to version "1" if you don't mind this restriction.

  • "use_fs_keyring_for_v1_policies" specifies whether to add keys for v1 encryption policies to the filesystem keyring, rather than to user keyrings. This can solve issues with processes being unable to access encrypted files. However, it requires kernel v5.4 or later, and it makes unlocking and locking encrypted directories require root.

    The purpose of this setting is to allow people to take advantage of some of the improvements in Linux v5.4 on encrypted directories that are also compatible with older kernels. If you don't need compatibility with older kernels, it's better to not use this setting and instead (re-)create your encrypted directories with "policy_version": "2".

Setting up for login protectors

If you want any encrypted directories to be protected by your login passphrase, you'll need to:

  1. Secure your login passphrase (optional, but strongly recommended)
  2. Enable the PAM module (pam_fscrypt.so)

If you installed fscrypt from source rather than from your distro's package manager, you may also need to allow fscrypt to check your login passphrase.

Securing your login passphrase

Although fscrypt uses a strong passphrase hash algorithm, the security of login protectors is also limited by the strength of your system's passphrase hashing in /etc/shadow. On most Linux distributions, /etc/shadow by default uses SHA-512 with 5000 rounds, which is much weaker than what fscrypt uses.

To mitigate this, you should use a strong login passphrase.

If using a strong login passphrase is annoying because it needs to be entered frequently to run sudo, consider increasing the sudo timeout. That can be done by adding the following to /etc/sudoers:

Defaults timestamp_timeout=60

You should also increase the number of rounds that your system's passphrase hashing uses (though this doesn't increase security as much as choosing a strong passphrase). To do this, find the line in /etc/pam.d/passwd that looks like:

password	required	pam_unix.so sha512 shadow nullok

Append rounds=1000000 (or another number of your choice; the goal is to make the passphrase hashing take about 1 second, similar to fscrypt's default):

password	required	pam_unix.so sha512 shadow nullok rounds=1000000

Then, change your login passphrase to a new, strong passphrase:

passwd

If you'd like to keep the same login passphrase (not recommended, as the old passphrase hash may still be recoverable from disk), then instead run sudo passwd $USER and enter your existing passphrase. This re-hashes your existing passphrase with the new rounds.

Enabling the PAM module

To enable the PAM module pam_fscrypt.so, follow the directions for your Linux distro below. Enabling the PAM module is needed for login passphrase-protected directories to be automatically unlocked when you log in, and for login passphrase-protected directories to remain accessible when you change your login passphrase.

Enabling the PAM module on Ubuntu

Both the official fscrypt package for Ubuntu and sudo make install will install a configuration file for Ubuntu's PAM configuration framework to /usr/share/pam-configs/fscrypt. This file contains reasonable defaults for the PAM module. To automatically apply these defaults, run sudo pam-auth-update and follow the on-screen instructions.

Enabling the PAM module on Arch Linux

On Arch Linux, follow the recommendations at the Arch Linux Wiki.

We recommend using the Arch Linux package, either fscrypt (official) or fscrypt-git (AUR). If you instead install fscrypt manually using sudo make install, then in addition to the steps on the Wiki you'll also need to create /etc/pam.d/fscrypt.

Enabling the PAM module on other Linux distros

On all other Linux distros, follow the general guidance below to edit your PAM configuration files.

The fscrypt PAM module implements the Auth, Session, and Password types.

The Password functionality of pam_fscrypt.so is used to automatically rewrap a user's login protector when their unix passphrase changes. An easy way to get the working is to add the line:

password    optional    pam_fscrypt.so

after pam_unix.so in /etc/pam.d/common-password or similar.

The Auth and Session functionality of pam_fscrypt.so are used to automatically unlock directories when logging in as a user. An easy way to get this working is to add the line:

auth        optional    pam_fscrypt.so

after pam_unix.so in /etc/pam.d/common-auth or similar, and to add the line:

session     optional    pam_fscrypt.so drop_caches lock_policies

after pam_unix.so in /etc/pam.d/common-session or similar. The lock_policies option locks the directories protected with the user's login passphrase when the last session ends. The drop_caches option tells fscrypt to clear the filesystem caches when the last session closes, ensuring all the locked data is inaccessible; this only needed for v1 encryption policies. All the types also support the debug option which prints additional debug information to the syslog.

Allowing fscrypt to check your login passphrase

This step is only needed if you installed fscrypt from source code.

Some Linux distros use restrictive settings in /etc/pam.d/other that prevent non-whitelisted programs from checking your login passphrase. This prevents fscrypt from creating any login passphrase-protected directories, even without auto-unlocking. To ensure that fscrypt will work properly (if you didn't install an official fscrypt package from your distro, which should have already handled this), also create a file /etc/pam.d/fscrypt containing:

auth        required    pam_unix.so

Note about stability

fscrypt follows semantic versioning. As such, all versions below 1.0.0 should be considered development versions. This means no guarantees are make about the stability of APIs or formats of config files. As the on-disk metadata structures use Protocol Buffers, we don't expect to break backwards compatibility for metadata, but we give no guarantees.

Example Usage

All these examples assume there is an ext4 filesystem which supports encryption mounted at /mnt/disk. See here for how to enable encryption support on an ext4 filesystem.

Setting up fscrypt on a directory

# Check which directories on our system support encryption
>>>>> fscrypt status
filesystems supporting encryption: 1
filesystems with fscrypt metadata: 0

MOUNTPOINT  DEVICE     FILESYSTEM  ENCRYPTION   FSCRYPT
/           /dev/sda1  ext4        not enabled  No
/mnt/disk   /dev/sdb   ext4        supported    No

# Create the global configuration file. Nothing else necessarily needs root.
>>>>> sudo fscrypt setup
Defaulting to policy_version 2 because kernel supports it.
Customizing passphrase hashing difficulty for this system...
Created global config file at "/etc/fscrypt.conf".
Metadata directories created at "/.fscrypt".

# Start using fscrypt with our filesystem
>>>>> fscrypt setup /mnt/disk
Metadata directories created at "/mnt/disk/.fscrypt".

# Initialize encryption on a new empty directory
>>>>> mkdir /mnt/disk/dir1
>>>>> fscrypt encrypt /mnt/disk/dir1
The following protector sources are available:
1 - Your login passphrase (pam_passphrase)
2 - A custom passphrase (custom_passphrase)
3 - A raw 256-bit key (raw_key)
Enter the source number for the new protector [2 - custom_passphrase]: 2
Enter a name for the new protector: Super Secret
Enter custom passphrase for protector "Super Secret":
Confirm passphrase:
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is now encrypted, unlocked, and ready for use.

# We can see this created one policy and one protector for this directory
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk
ext4 filesystem "/mnt/disk" has 1 protector and 1 policy

PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No      custom protector "Super Secret"

POLICY                            UNLOCKED  PROTECTORS
16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382  Yes       7626382168311a9d

Quiet Version

>>>>> sudo fscrypt setup --quiet --force
>>>>> fscrypt setup /mnt/disk --quiet
>>>>> echo "hunter2" | fscrypt encrypt /mnt/disk/dir1 --quiet --source=custom_passphrase  --name="Super Secret"

Locking and unlocking a directory

# Write a file to our encrypted directory.
>>>>> echo "Hello World" > /mnt/disk/dir1/secret.txt
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk/dir1
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is encrypted with fscrypt.

Policy:   16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
Options:  padding:32 contents:AES_256_XTS filenames:AES_256_CTS policy_version:2
Unlocked: Yes

Protected with 1 protector:
PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No      custom protector "Super Secret"

# Lock the directory.  Note: if using a v1 encryption policy instead
# of v2, you'll need 'sudo fscrypt lock /mnt/disk/dir1 --user=$USER'.
>>>>> fscrypt lock /mnt/disk/dir1
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is now locked.
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk/dir1
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is encrypted with fscrypt.

Policy:   16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
Options:  padding:32 contents:AES_256_XTS filenames:AES_256_CTS policy_version:2
Unlocked: No

Protected with 1 protector:
PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No      custom protector "Super Secret"

# Now the filenames and file contents are inaccessible
>>>>> ls /mnt/disk/dir1
u,k20l9HrtrizDjh0zGkw2dTfBkX4T0ZDUlsOhBLl4P
>>>>> cat /mnt/disk/dir1/u,k20l9HrtrizDjh0zGkw2dTfBkX4T0ZDUlsOhBLl4P
cat: /mnt/disk/dir1/u,k20l9HrtrizDjh0zGkw2dTfBkX4T0ZDUlsOhBLl4P: Required key not available

# Unlocking the directory makes the contents available
>>>>> fscrypt unlock /mnt/disk/dir1
Enter custom passphrase for protector "Super Secret":
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is now unlocked and ready for use.
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk/dir1
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is encrypted with fscrypt.

Policy:   16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
Options:  padding:32 contents:AES_256_XTS filenames:AES_256_CTS policy_version:2
Unlocked: Yes

Protected with 1 protector:
PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No      custom protector "Super Secret"
>>>>> cat /mnt/disk/dir1/secret.txt
Hello World

Quiet Version

>>>>> fscrypt lock /mnt/disk/dir1 --quiet
>>>>> echo "hunter2" | fscrypt unlock /mnt/disk/dir1 --quiet

Protecting a directory with your login passphrase

First, ensure that you have properly set up your system for login protectors.

Then, you can protect directories with your login passphrase as follows:

# Select your login passphrase as the desired source.
>>>>> mkdir /mnt/disk/dir2
>>>>> fscrypt encrypt /mnt/disk/dir2
Should we create a new protector? [y/N] y
The following protector sources are available:
1 - Your login passphrase (pam_passphrase)
2 - A custom passphrase (custom_passphrase)
3 - A raw 256-bit key (raw_key)
Enter the source number for the new protector [2 - custom_passphrase]: 1
Enter login passphrase for joerichey:
"/mnt/disk/dir2" is now encrypted, unlocked, and ready for use.

# Note that the login protector actually sits on the root filesystem
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk/dir2
"/mnt/disk/dir2" is encrypted with fscrypt.

Policy:   fe1c92009abc1cff4f3257c77e8134e3
Options:  padding:32 contents:AES_256_XTS filenames:AES_256_CTS policy_version:2
Unlocked: Yes

Protected with 1 protector:
PROTECTOR         LINKED   DESCRIPTION
6891f0a901f0065e  Yes (/)  login protector for joerichey
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk
ext4 filesystem "/mnt/disk" has 2 protectors and 2 policies

PROTECTOR         LINKED   DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No       custom protector "Super Secret"
6891f0a901f0065e  Yes (/)  login protector for joerichey

POLICY                            UNLOCKED  PROTECTORS
16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382  Yes       7626382168311a9d
fe1c92009abc1cff4f3257c77e8134e3  Yes       6891f0a901f0065e
>>>>> fscrypt status /
ext4 filesystem "/" has 1 protector(s) and 0 policy(ies)

PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
6891f0a901f0065e  No      login protector for joerichey

Quiet Version

>>>>> mkdir /mnt/disk/dir2
>>>>> echo "password" | fscrypt encrypt /mnt/disk/dir2 --source=pam_passphrase --quiet

Changing a custom passphrase

# First we have to figure out which protector we wish to change.
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk/dir1
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is encrypted with fscrypt.

Policy:   16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
Options:  padding:32 contents:AES_256_XTS filenames:AES_256_CTS policy_version:2
Unlocked: Yes

Protected with 1 protector:
PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No      custom protector "Super Secret"

# Now specify the protector directly to the metadata command
>>>>> fscrypt metadata change-passphrase --protector=/mnt/disk:7626382168311a9d
Enter old custom passphrase for protector "Super Secret":
Enter new custom passphrase for protector "Super Secret":
Confirm passphrase:
Passphrase for protector 7626382168311a9d successfully changed.

Quiet Version

>>>>> printf "hunter2\nhunter3" | fscrypt metadata change-passphrase --protector=/mnt/disk:7626382168311a9d --quiet

Using a raw key protector

fscrypt also supports protectors which use raw key files as the user-provided secret. These key files must be exactly 32 bytes long and contain the raw binary data of the key. Obviously, make sure to store the key file securely (and not in the directory you are encrypting with it). If generating the keys on Linux make sure you are aware of how randomness works and some common myths.

# Generate a 256-bit key file
>>>>> head --bytes=32 /dev/urandom > secret.key

# Now create a key file protector without using it on a directory. Note that we
# could also use `fscrypt encrypt --key=secret.key` to achieve the same thing.
>>>>> fscrypt metadata create protector /mnt/disk
Create new protector on "/mnt/disk" [Y/n] y
The following protector sources are available:
1 - Your login passphrase (pam_passphrase)
2 - A custom passphrase (custom_passphrase)
3 - A raw 256-bit key (raw_key)
Enter the source number for the new protector [2 - custom_passphrase]: 3
Enter a name for the new protector: Skeleton
Enter key file for protector "Skeleton": secret.key
Protector 2c75f519b9c9959d created on filesystem "/mnt/disk".
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk
ext4 filesystem "/mnt/disk" has 3 protectors and 2 policies

PROTECTOR         LINKED   DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No       custom protector "Super Secret"
2c75f519b9c9959d  No       raw key protector "Skeleton"
6891f0a901f0065e  Yes (/)  login protector for joerichey

POLICY                            UNLOCKED  PROTECTORS
16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382  Yes       7626382168311a9d
fe1c92009abc1cff4f3257c77e8134e3  Yes       6891f0a901f0065e

# Finally, we could apply this key to a directory
>>>>> mkdir /mnt/disk/dir3
>>>>> fscrypt encrypt /mnt/disk/dir3 --protector=/mnt/disk:2c75f519b9c9959d
Enter key file for protector "Skeleton": secret.key
"/mnt/disk/dir3" is now encrypted, unlocked, and ready for use.

Quiet Version

>>>>> head --bytes=32 /dev/urandom > secret.key
>>>>> fscrypt encrypt /mnt/disk/dir3 --key=secret.key --source=raw_key --name=Skeleton

Using multiple protectors for a policy

fscrypt supports the idea of protecting a single directory with multiple protectors. This means having access to any of the protectors is sufficient to decrypt the directory. This is useful for sharing data or setting up access control systems.

# Add an existing protector to the policy for some directory
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk
ext4 filesystem "/mnt/disk" has 3 protectors and 3 policies

PROTECTOR         LINKED   DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No       custom protector "Super Secret"
2c75f519b9c9959d  No       raw key protector "Skeleton"
6891f0a901f0065e  Yes (/)  login protector for joerichey

POLICY                            UNLOCKED  PROTECTORS
d03fb894584a4318d1780e9a7b0b47eb  No        2c75f519b9c9959d
16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382  No        7626382168311a9d
fe1c92009abc1cff4f3257c77e8134e3  No        6891f0a901f0065e
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk/dir1
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is encrypted with fscrypt.

Policy:   16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
Options:  padding:32 contents:AES_256_XTS filenames:AES_256_CTS policy_version:2
Unlocked: No

Protected with 1 protector:
PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No      custom protector "Super Secret"
>>>>> fscrypt metadata add-protector-to-policy --protector=/mnt/disk:2c75f519b9c9959d --policy=/mnt/disk:16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
WARNING: All files using this policy will be accessible with this protector!!
Protect policy 16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382 with protector 2c75f519b9c9959d? [Y/n]
Enter key file for protector "Skeleton": secret.key
Enter custom passphrase for protector "Super Secret":
Protector 2c75f519b9c9959d now protecting policy 16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382.
>>>>> fscrypt status /mnt/disk/dir1
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is encrypted with fscrypt.

Policy:   16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
Options:  padding:32 contents:AES_256_XTS filenames:AES_256_CTS policy_version:2
Unlocked: No

Protected with 2 protectors:
PROTECTOR         LINKED  DESCRIPTION
7626382168311a9d  No      custom protector "Super Secret"
2c75f519b9c9959d  No      raw key protector "Skeleton"

# Now the unlock command will prompt for which protector we want to use
>>>>> fscrypt unlock /mnt/disk/dir1
The available protectors are:
0 - custom protector "Super Secret"
1 - raw key protector "Skeleton"
Enter the number of protector to use: 1
Enter key file for protector "Skeleton": secret.key
"/mnt/disk/dir1" is now unlocked and ready for use.

# The protector can also be removed from the policy (if it is not the only one)
>>>>> fscrypt metadata remove-protector-from-policy --protector=/mnt/disk:2c75f519b9c9959d --policy=/mnt/disk:16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382
WARNING: All files using this policy will NO LONGER be accessible with this protector!!
Stop protecting policy 16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382 with protector 2c75f519b9c9959d? [y/N] y
Protector 2c75f519b9c9959d no longer protecting policy 16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382.

Quiet Version

>>>>> echo "hunter2" | fscrypt metadata add-protector-to-policy --protector=/mnt/disk:2c75f519b9c9959d --policy=/mnt/disk:16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382 --key=secret.key --quiet
>>>>> fscrypt metadata remove-protector-from-policy --protector=/mnt/disk:2c75f519b9c9959d --policy=/mnt/disk:16382f282d7b29ee27e6460151d03382 --quiet --force

Contributing

We would love to accept your contributions to fscrypt. See the CONTRIBUTING.md file for more information about signing the CLA and submitting a pull request.

Troubleshooting

In general, if you are encountering issues with fscrypt, open an issue, following the guidelines in CONTRIBUTING.md. We will try our best to help.

I changed my login passphrase, now all my directories are inaccessible

The PAM module pam_fscrypt.so should automatically detect changes to a user's login passphrase so that they can still access their encrypted directories. However, sometimes a user's login passphrase can become desynchronized from their login protector. This can happen if their login passphrase is managed by an external system, if the PAM module is not installed, or if the PAM module is not properly configured. See Enabling the PAM module for how to configure the PAM module.

To fix a user's login protector, find the corresponding protector ID by running fscrypt status "/". Then, change this protector's passphrase by running:

fscrypt metadata change-passphrase --protector=/:ID

Directories using my login passphrase are not automatically unlocking.

First, directories won't unlock if your session starts without password authentication. The most common case of this is public-key ssh login. To trigger a password authentication event, run su $USER -c exit.

If your session did start with password authentication, then either the PAM module is not correctly installed and configured, or your login passphrase changed and got out of sync with your login protector. Ensure you have correctly configured the PAM module. Then, if necessary, manually change your login protector's passphrase to get it back in sync with your actual login passphrase.

Getting "encryption not enabled" on an ext4 filesystem.

This is usually caused by your ext4 filesystem not having the encrypt feature flag enabled. The encrypt feature flag allows the filesystem to contain encrypted files. (It doesn't actually encrypt anything by itself.)

Before enabling encrypt on your ext4 filesystem, first ensure that all of the following are true for you:

  • You only need to use your filesystem on kernels v4.1 and later.

    (Kernels v4.0 and earlier can't mount ext4 filesystems that have the encrypt feature flag.)

  • Either you only need to use your filesystem on kernels v5.5 and later, or your kernel page size (run getconf PAGE_SIZE) and filesystem block size (run tune2fs -l /dev/device | grep 'Block size') are the same.

    (Both values will almost always be 4096, but they may differ if your filesystem is very small, if your system uses the PowerPC CPU architecture, or if you overrode the default block size when you created the filesystem. Only kernels v5.5 and later support ext4 encryption in such cases.)

  • Either you aren't using GRUB to boot directly off the filesystem in question, or you are using GRUB 2.04 or later.

    (Old versions of GRUB can't boot from ext4 filesystems that have encrypt enabled. If, like most people, you have a separate /boot partition, you are fine. You are also fine if you are using the GRUB Debian package 2.02-2 or later [not 2.02_beta*], including the version in Ubuntu 18.04 and later, since the patch to support encrypt was backported.)

After verifying all of the above, enable encrypt by running:

tune2fs -O encrypt /dev/device

If you need to undo this, first delete all encrypted files and directories on the filesystem. Then, run:

fsck -fn /dev/device
debugfs -w -R "feature -encrypt" /dev/device
fsck -fn /dev/device

If you've enabled encrypt but you still get the "encryption not enabled" error, then the problem is that ext4 encryption isn't enabled in your kernel config. See Runtime Dependencies for how to enable it.

Getting "Operation not permitted" when moving files into an encrypted directory.

This occurs when the kernel version is older than v5.1 and the source files are on the same filesystem and are either unencrypted or are in a different encrypted directory hierarchy.

Solution: copy the files instead, e.g. with cp.

mv works on kernels v5.1 and later, since those kernels return the correct error code to make mv fall back to a copy itself.

HOWEVER: in either case, it is important to realize that the original files may remain recoverable from free space on the disk after they are deleted. It's much better to keep all files encrypted from the very beginning.

As a last resort, the shred program may be used to try to overwrite the original files, e.g.:

cp file encrypted_dir/
shred -u file

However, shred isn't guaranteed to be effective on all filesystems and storage devices.

Can't log in with ssh even when user's encrypted home directory is unlocked

This is caused by a limitation in the original design of Linux filesystem encryption which made it difficult to ensure that all processes can access unlocked encrypted files. This issue can also manifest in other ways such as Docker containers being unable to access encrypted files, or NetworkManager being unable to access certificates if they are located in an encrypted directory.

The recommended way to fix this is by creating your encrypted directories using v2 encryption policies rather than v1. This requires Linux v5.4 or later and fscrypt v0.2.6 or later. If these prerequisites are met, enable v2 policies for new directories by setting "policy_version": "2" in /etc/fscrypt.conf. For example:

	"options": {
		"padding": "32",
		"contents": "AES_256_XTS",
		"filenames": "AES_256_CTS",
		"policy_version": "2"
	},

This only affects new directories. If you want to upgrade an existing encrypted directory to use a v2 policy, you'll need to re-create it by using fscrypt encrypt to encrypt a new empty directory, copying your files into it, and replacing the original directory with it.

In fscrypt v0.2.7 and later, the fscrypt setup command automatically sets "policy_version": "2" when creating /etc/fscrypt.conf if kernel support is present.

IMPORTANT: directories that use v2 encryption policies are unusable on Linux v5.3 and earlier. If this will be a problem for you (for example, if your encrypted directories are on removable storage that needs to work on computers with both old and new kernels), you'll need to use v1 policies instead. In this case, you can enable a fallback option to make fscrypt use the filesystem keyring for v1 policies:

	"use_fs_keyring_for_v1_policies": true

This fallback option only has an effect if the kernel supports using the filesystem keyring. This option is also useful if you simply don't want to re-create your old, v1 directories. However, this option makes manually unlocking and locking encrypted directories start to require root. (The PAM module will still work.) E.g., you'll need to run sudo fscrypt unlock, not fscrypt unlock. Most people should just use v2 policies instead.

Legal

Copyright 2017 Google Inc. under the Apache 2.0 License; see the LICENSE file for more information.

Author: Joe Richey joerichey@google.com

This is not an official Google product.