¶ Installation
¶ Requirement
- encrypted at rest
- data accessible at the file level of resolution
- use space as needed on a removable media (i.e. Not create a filesystem in a big file)
I wanted a backup system that would be encrypted at rest if I'd ever loose my backup disk. But I want a solution where I could access the files as a file system (when I'm traveling for instance).
I used to use VeraCrypt, which has all that I needed, except for the requirement that you need to commit to allocating the size of the filesystem when you create the encrypted filesystem (except for Dynamic containers). So whether I'd use 20% or 90% of that filesystem, it would always occupy 100% of that size on the physical media, so I couldn't use the empty space for day-to-day. The one thing that I is more difficult to do is "plausible deniability" claim that my backup requires special software that I don't have with me to open this file. I understand that me writing this on a public site would most likely mean I would never be able to use this excuse, but I live in a relatively free society (Canada) so it is unlikely I would ever require "plausible deniability". I may return to this if I don't like my experience with goCryptFs.
This is what the backup looks like on my USB disk:
Installation and usage on Linux Ubuntu:
sudo apt install gocryptfs
# Initialize the filesystem for encryption
gocryptfs -init /media/politick/E-data/data/backup
# Mount a decrypted version of the filesystem in your home directory
gocryptfs /media/politick/E-data/data/backup ~/backup
# Create a backup
rsync -r /mnt/data/User/ ~/backup/User/
# Unmount the decrypted filesystem
fusermount -u ~/backup
Resource : https://opensource.com/article/19/8/how-encrypt-files-gocryptfs