USB drive - crypto filesystem options?

[Louis LeBlanc]

Hey folks.

I have just become the proud owner of a fancy new 1GB USB 2.0 drive;
one of those cool new gadgets no bigger than my pinky that holds 1
Billion bytes of data. Naturally, I can't wait to play with it :)

Well, I know that USB 2.0 support is kinda sketchy, and I've already
decided it's not stable on the ICH5 USB controller that comes with the
Dell Dimension 8300. Regardless, I have confirmed that I can get the
little gadget mounted (comes pre-formatted with an MSDos filesystem)
without the slightest hangup. Yay me.

So, now what I want to do is see what kind of filesystem options I
have with this little gem. Ideally, I would like to get an encrypted
filesystem that requires a password to mount it. Of course, I've
checked the ports, but I don't know much about this area, and I don't
know if I'm even using the right search keys. A little googling
revealed a great article at "The FreeBSD Diary"
([url]http://www.freebsddiary.org/encrypted-fs.php[/url]) that discusses cfs.
Sounds cool, move to the top of the list - ok, it's the only thing on
the list right now.

That's where you folks come in. Has anyone had any experience
actually using a crypto filesystem on a USB drive? What utilities are
available for this? And more importantly, what have your experiences
been?

TIA
Lou
--
Louis LeBlanc FreeBSD-at-keyslapper-DOT-net
Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :)
Please send off-list email to: leblanc at keyslapper d.t net
Key fingerprint = C5E7 4762 F071 CE3B ED51 4FB8 AF85 A2FE 80C8 D9A2

Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

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[albi@scii.nl]

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 20:40:37 -0500
Louis LeBlanc <FreeBSD@keyslapper.net> wrote:

> I have just become the proud owner of a fancy new 1GB USB 2.0 drive;
> one of those cool new gadgets no bigger than my pinky that holds 1
> Billion bytes of data. Naturally, I can't wait to play with it :)

------- cut ------

> That's where you folks come in. Has anyone had any experience
> actually using a crypto filesystem on a USB drive? What utilities are
> available for this? And more importantly, what have your experiences
> been?

without any probs i've used GBDE on an usb-stick :
/usr/share/doc/en/books/handbook/disks-encrypting.html

[albi@scii.nl]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 11:55:57 +0100
"albi@scii.nl" <albi@scii.nl> wrote:

> without any probs i've used GBDE on an usb-stick :
> /usr/share/doc/en/books/handbook/disks-encrypting.html

i actually used the GBDE-part of this article :
[url]http://bsdnews.org/03/cryptusb.php[/url]

[Lars Kristiansen]

> That's where you folks come in. Has anyone had any experience

> actually using a crypto filesystem on a USB drive? What utilities are
> available for this? And more importantly, what have your experiences
> been?

Have been using cfs for a few years without any problems, first on linux,
now also on freebsd.
Have got an usb-stick with ext2fs-filesystem and a cfs encrypted directory.
The files can the be accessed from both linux and freebsd.
Backups are easy, just copy the encrypted files, and they can be attached
from anywhere.

--
Hilsen Lars

[Loren M. Lang]

On Sun, Feb 20, 2005 at 08:40:37PM -0500, Louis LeBlanc wrote:

> Hey folks.
>
> I have just become the proud owner of a fancy new 1GB USB 2.0 drive;
> one of those cool new gadgets no bigger than my pinky that holds 1
> Billion bytes of data. Naturally, I can't wait to play with it :)
>
> Well, I know that USB 2.0 support is kinda sketchy, and I've already
> decided it's not stable on the ICH5 USB controller that comes with the
> Dell Dimension 8300. Regardless, I have confirmed that I can get the
> little gadget mounted (comes pre-formatted with an MSDos filesystem)
> without the slightest hangup. Yay me.
>
> So, now what I want to do is see what kind of filesystem options I
> have with this little gem. Ideally, I would like to get an encrypted
> filesystem that requires a password to mount it. Of course, I've
> checked the ports, but I don't know much about this area, and I don't
> know if I'm even using the right search keys. A little googling
> revealed a great article at "The FreeBSD Diary"
> ([url]http://www.freebsddiary.org/encrypted-fs.php[/url]) that discusses cfs.
> Sounds cool, move to the top of the list - ok, it's the only thing on
> the list right now.
>
> That's where you folks come in. Has anyone had any experience
> actually using a crypto filesystem on a USB drive? What utilities are
> available for this? And more importantly, what have your experiences
> been?

I, personally, have found that just using gpg to encrypt important files
on my memory stick as gpg runs on multiple oses: bsd, win, linux, max.
I may also place my encrypted private key on it along with executables
on it for windows since linux/bsd propably already have it installed.
Then I can read the files on any system with just a passphrase.

>
> TIA
> Lou
> --
> Louis LeBlanc FreeBSD-at-keyslapper-DOT-net
> Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :)
> Please send off-list email to: leblanc at keyslapper d.t net
> Key fingerprint = C5E7 4762 F071 CE3B ED51 4FB8 AF85 A2FE 80C8 D9A2
>
> Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
> The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
> the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

--
I sense much NT in you.
NT leads to Bluescreen.
Bluescreen leads to downtime.
Downtime leads to suffering.
NT is the path to the darkside.
Powerful Unix is.

Public Key: [url]ftp://ftp.tallye.com/pub/lorenl_pubkey.asc[/url]
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