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Evaluating EncFS and Loop-AES for Enhancing Linux Data Security

Calendar Mar 21, 2006 • User Avatar Anthony Pell
1 min read
General Esm H446
Topics%20covered

Topics Covered

data protection data encryption filesystem encryption EncFS Loop-AES Linux file security encrypted filesystem
Encrypted filesystems may be overkill for family photos or your résumé, but they make sense for network-accessible servers that hold sensitive business documents, databases that contain credit-card information, offline backups, and laptops. EncFS and Loop-AES, which are both released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), are two approaches to encrypting Linux filesystems. I'll compare the two and then look at other alternatives.

EncFS provides an encrypted filesystem in userspace and runs without any special permissions. In fact, it's not so much a filesystem as a program that translates requests (encrypting or decrypting them as appropriate) and passes them to the underlying filesystem.

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