Encrypted home directory

[Eric Sandeen]

Sachin wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Can we have the feature of the encrypted the home directory with out of
> the box experience.
> 
> Ubuntu is planning for the next release. This is not real motivation.
> 
> http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/alpha2

eCryptfs is still somewhat fragile at times; under constrained usecases
it's reasonably ok but if you stray from that things can go badly...
The stuff Ubuntu has done is interesting but I'm wondering if anyone
there has really given the kernelspace side a good workout.  (I've
worked on eCryptfs a lot, and it's pretty nifty, but there are still
some kinks to work out).

dm-crypt is available for Fedora too, and while it is not as flexible on
a per-dir or per-file basis, it may be an option for you.

> But to have this feature on a laptop is very useful.
> 
> I know user can implement this with some configuration changes but for
> average person like me this could too much.
> 
> There is also not much of performance loss. Following is benchmarking
> from Phoronix,
> 
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_jaunty_encrypt&num=1
> <http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_jaunty_encrypt&num=1>

Ah, the vaunted phoronix benchmark suite ;)

-Eric

> Regards,
> Sachin.
>