In this day and age, encryption has become the focus for securing sensitive data like bank account information, software licenses, or even social security numbers. If you have ever wanted to keep specific folders in your home directory encrypted in Linux there are a multitude of ways. Cryptkeeper and K-encfs come to mind. Both applications use Encfs to create and access encrypted folders. I have found Cryptkeeper to run well in KDE4, and since it is in Ubuntu’s Universal repository it was natural to quickly adopt. To install head on over to a terminal and (if you have the Universal repository in your repository list) enter the following:
~$ sudo apt-get install cryptkeeper
You should now be good to go, and find Cryptkeeper in your System applications folder. Now that it is installed, this might be a good application to add to your startup so you don’t have to do the pre-coffee click-all-fancy-app jig in the morning. To add to Cryptkeeper to your KDE startup create a link in your ~/.kde/Autostart folder. To do that we need to get to the Autostart folder. Open up a terminal session and type in the following:
~$ dolphin ~/.kde/Autostart
Right click in the newly created Dolphin window and select Create New -> Link to Application and enter the following:
Now it should come up every time you log in. Go ahead and start it up now, and create a new folder by clicking on the Cryptkeeper tray and selecting “New Encrypted Folder.” You should get a window like this:
Enter in the name of the folder you wish to create, click Forward, and then enter a password. You will now be able to mount or unmount this folder easily through the system tray.
After playing around with Cryptkeeper, you’ll find that the application itself is pretty simple, giving you the ability to create, import, mount or unmount an Encfs folders. For anybody looking to keep prying eyes out of personal files, Cryptkeeper does the trick.
Since Cryptkeeper does use Encfs under the covers it might be good to know a few disadvantages exist. First, lets start by saying remember your password, Encfs doesn’t have a multiple key system so if you lose your password an admin can’t help you out. Also file attributes remain viewable. I have created a folder called “secret” which can be found as .secret_enfs in my home folder. I’ve opened up my .secret_enfs folder and then used Cryptkeeper to mount this folder so you can see below:
Even though the attributes remain in place, filenames and contents are hidden. Lastly encryption is done in real time and very CPU costly so I wouldn’t suggest using it with large files. All that being said, it is a quick and easy way to protect files in your home directory or on a pendrive.
Check it out and let us know what you think!
Great application! I work in a foreign government’s ministry and need to keep some things confidential, so just the ticket.
However, I am having trouble across Linux distributions. I created a folder in one (Xubuntu) but can’t access it in another (Linux Mint). I couldn’t find any help on the subject of cross distribution usage, so tried the “Import EncFS folder” option. During the import process it could certainly see the existing folder (hidden in my documents [a data partition shared by all distribution]), but when I try to mount it from the tray applet, after entering my password, a window saying “Creating new encrypted volume” appears but nothing happens after that. The folder is still invisible and not listed as mounted in the applet right click menu.
By the way, how good is the encryption?
Thanks!