Hi, I’m running a ubuntu based backup server. And was wondering if there’s a simple way to encrypt my drives in case they get swiped or something by a break in. But also in a way that the computer can be restarted and decrypt the drive without me needing to stick a key in everytime. Any ideas? It seems basic but I’m not an expert on all these newfangled encryption terminology, so would like something idiot proof (by idiot proof, not idiot enough to lose/forget the decryption key)
I use a luks encrypted USB drive for automated backups. My backup script mounts and decrypts the drive automatically, using secret-tool to grab the encryption pass from my keyring. It then creates the snapshots, and automatically unmounts the drive after.
There might be better methods, but this one works well for me.
If someone can login as root on that machine, by for example rebooting in recovery mode, they can also run the script and access the drives. Or they can get the password from the keyring. A keyring that doesn’t require a password to unlock or whose password is stored somewhere on the machine is equivalent to plain text storage. There’s no obvious solution other than ensuring the system can’t be rooted without a login, I’m just pointing the flaw out in case you feel it’s more secure than it is.
In my case root partition is encrypted, and the keyring has to be unlocked every time you reboot.