I’m vaguely interested in having a few different encrypted folders on my computer, with different passwords on each. I don’t have any particular strong requirements. It’s more of a velleity; mostly just to try it so that I know more about it.
That said, when I search for encryption options, I see a lot of different advice from different times. I’m seeings stuff about EncFS, eCryptFS, CryFS; and others… and I find it a bit confusing because to me all those names look basically the same; and it’s not easy for me to tell whether or not the info I’m reading is out of date.
So figure I’d just ask here for recommendations. The way I imagine it, I want some encrypted data on my computer with as little indication of what it is as possible; and but with a command and a password I can then access it like a normal drive or folder; copying stuff in or out, or editing things. And when I’m done, I unmount it (or whatever) and now its inaccessible and opaque again.
I’m under the impression that there are a bunch of different tools that will do what I’ve got in mind. But I’m interested in recommendations (since most of the recommendations I’ve seen on the internet seem to be from years ago, and for maybe slightly different use-cases).
Yes, until you’ve to build it from the source because… https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=928956
Unfortunately ECryptfs seems to be only one that supports inotify as the other popular solutions (gocryptfs, encfs, cryfs) are all FUSE based and it doesn’t seem to play very well with inotify. And cryptomator is another FUSE joke that will lead to data loss.
I had forgotten about LUKE, have you tried it?
I need something that is able to encrypt single files - not an entire disk / partition / volume or a disk image. I’m using Syncthing on those encrypted files so having them as a partition or single file doesn’t work out.
On a folder level that is how I work both in Linux and windows.
For single use encryption the is also GPG.
https://devconnected.com/how-to-encrypt-file-on-linux/
Edit2:
With
Syncthingthere is options to use a / partition / volume or a disk image. I am assuming you are using a linux desktop.You can use tools like LUKE with Systemd-homed, where the home folder is encrypted, that get mount at login, and Syncthing service get started after mount.
Unless I’m missing something, what I need is something that I can point to a folder and say “this is encrypted” and it will mount an unencrypted version of that somewhere. What ECryptfs does is that it encrypts any file I place on the foder individually / doesn’t create a single block of data that is hard to sync. GPG is file by file manually.