Linux 6.4 or newer paired with the latest cryptsetup development code has landed support for the OPAL specification for self-encrypting drives. . The OPAL specification is backed by major hardware vendors including Samsung, Micron, SanDisk, Seagate, Hitachi. Toshiba, Kingston, Intel, Lenovo, and others for a self-encrypting drive standard. With code recently merged to the cryptsetup library there is the OPAL bits added. Luca Boccassi commented in the merge request: "With this I can format, open, use, close and erase multiple partitions on the same SED disk as separate luks volumes, on disks that support Single User Mode and disks that do not. Requires kernel 6.4." The link for this article located at Phoronix is no longer available. . The addition of OPAL self-encrypting drives support in cryptsetup significantly bolsters data security for users on the Linux platform.. OPAL Drives Support,Cryptsetup Features,Self-Encrypting Storage,Linux Data Protection. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
I am assuming that you already know how to set up an encrypted file system using cryptsetup with luks (or something else). There are several howtos. I am also assuming that you are familiar with LVM2. This tutorial deals only with how to add an extra encrypted physical volume to a volume group pool containing other encrypted physical volumes. This is typical scenario if, at first, you have set up your encryption at a physical partition level (/dev/sdaX where X is the a number of your partition), then you setup your LVM on top of the encrypted partition. If at some later time you want to add another partition in your volume group, you will also want to have it encrypted in order to maintain the same level of security. In order for your machine to boot, initramfs needs to be able to unlock both PVs in order to reconstruct the entire volume group where your root lv is lying. For those of you familiar with LVM2 and looking to securely encrypt data on your logical volumes, this article provides a great step-by-step tutorial on how to do so. This implementation requires passwords to be typed for each volume - maybe you can let us know how this would be done with a keyfile?. The link for this article located at HowTo Forge is no longer available. . Discover the steps to safely incorporate an encrypted physical volume into your LVM configuration, enhancing your data security measures.. encrypted volume, LVM setup, data protection. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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