Re: [gentoo-user] Problems with loop-aes

[Alon Bar-Lev <alonbl@gentoo.org>]

On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 7:36 AM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, May 07, 2014 at 12:50:53AM +0300, Alon Bar-Lev wrote
> > Checkout[1]
> >
> > [1]
> > http://alonbl.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Gentoo/Linux_Disk_Encryption_Using_LoopAES_And_SmartCards
>
>   Unfortunately, 90% of the wiki entry is irrelavant to my situation.
> It's aimed at encrypting the entire machine, and making it bootable with
> initramfs.  I just need to encrypt a USB key.

Encrypting USB key without booting from it?

>   I see that it also says to build various stuff with the "static" USE
> flag.  I assume this is for an initramfs boot.  Looking at the ebuild, I
> see that it strongly suggests static-libs builds for a whole bunch of
> stuff.  I don't know if this is required in all cases, or simply for
> booting from an encrypted disk...
>
> LIB_DEPEND="dev-libs/libgpg-error[static-libs(+)]
>         dev-libs/popt[static-libs(+)]
>         sys-apps/util-linux[static-libs(+)]
>         gcrypt? ( dev-libs/libgcrypt:0[static-libs(+)] )
>         nettle? ( >=dev-libs/nettle-2.4[static-libs(+)] )
>         openssl? ( dev-libs/openssl[static-libs(+)] )
>         sys-fs/lvm2[static-libs(+)]
>         sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs[static-libs(+)]
>         udev? ( virtual/udev[static-libs(+)] )"
>
>   Also interesting is that this webpage recommends *NO* loop support in
> the kernel.  This may be important, i.e. loop-aes may provide the
> support, and clash with the kernel code.  Time to head off to bed
> tonight.  I'll try again in the morning.

Correct. If you want to use loop-aes you must disable the kernel loop,
this is how things are done.

Alon