Around 10:34am on Monday, April 25, 2011 (UK time), Gregory Hosler scrawled:
putting the passphrase into /etc/crypttab does make it readily
available (which
reduces the effectiveness of encrypting to begin with).
However ... crypttab has allowance of putting the passphrase into a file. By
doing so, and then chown root:root combined with chmod 400, only the root user
has availability of the passphrase. This allows the partition to be persistently
mounted at boot time w/o directly compromising the passphrase.
Should someone crack the root account, you probably have more serious problems
than worrying about the encrypted password...
I see encryption's value aparticularly tparticularly defending against
data loss because the computer has been stolen, where it could then be
booted at run level 1. And possibly against access by an intruder into
the building.
So not sure what value there is in setting up the encryption password in
/etc/crypttab - or have I misunderstood something?
Steve
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