[SOLVED] Can I decrypt an encrypted drive?

[theAdmiral]

Can I decrypt an encrypted drive without loss of data? If so, how, please?

Thanks,

[pete_1967]

Try this for info.

[theAdmiral]

I could use something written by the layperson, for the layperson, not something written by an Information Security Consultant employed by a fortune 500 application service provider who processes approximately half of the $5 trillion of residential mortgage debt in the US--a certified computer forensics specialist. In addition, author of the enterprise wide security incident management plan and information security policies for his corporation.

Thanks anyway,

[pete_1967]

You mean something on a silver platter so you don't have to lift a finger to do any research to find a solution like read more than the first result or change the query to find more, or even, wow, go to google.com/linux and do same search?

Yeah, I'm just tired to read these questions where people expect someone else to do all the work for them.

[forkbomb]

To answer your questions as best anybody can right now:
1) Yes, it's possible.
2) Don't know. You'd have to give details.

[theAdmiral]

Hmm. I don't know what I am doing (still a noob--how long till one is not a noob, anyway?)

So, to give you the details, I would have to ask you, "What details?" What info do you need for me to help you help me?

Thank you most kindly,

[forkbomb]

Did you set up the encryption at install time, or are you using some sort of "third party" encryption you applied later? What options did you pick at install time?

[theAdmiral]

Thanks for your reply.

No, I am not using third-part software. I set up the encryption at install-time.

I set up four drives: /boot, /root, swap, and /home. The purpose of the decryption is because I am trying to get VMWare to install WinVista on a virtual machine, and WinVista is not taking the drive in the setup.

Thanks much,

[forkbomb]

Using LVM? Did you do a default partitioning scheme or a custom one?

If you used LVM, I'll have to defer to somebody who knows more about how Anaconda installs. What I don't know is whether Anaconda encrypts first and then associates a physical volume with the encrypted device node, or encrypts individual LVM logical volumes.

Think of it like those Russian dolls. If you used LVM, you have to figure out whether to 1) decrypt first and then scan for logical volumes, or 2) scan for logical volumes first and decrypt after that.

I think Anaconda puts the logical volumes inside the encryption, but I'm not sure. I don't want to blindly start suggesting some dangerous commands to try from a LiveCD.

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by pete_1967

You mean something on a silver platter so you don't have to lift a finger to do any research to find a solution like read more than the first result or change the query to find more, or even, wow, go to google.com/linux and do same search?

Yeah, I'm just tired to read these questions where people expect someone else to do all the work for them.

Do what I do , don't bother answering

[glennzo]

You guys are brutal.

[theAdmiral]

Originally Posted by tjvanwyk

Using LVM? Did you do a default partitioning scheme or a custom one?

If you used LVM, I'll have to defer to somebody who knows more about how Anaconda installs. What I don't know is whether Anaconda encrypts first and then associates a physical volume with the encrypted device node, or encrypts individual LVM logical volumes.

Think of it like those Russian dolls. If you used LVM, you have to figure out whether to 1) decrypt first and then scan for logical volumes, or 2) scan for logical volumes first and decrypt after that.

I think Anaconda puts the logical volumes inside the encryption, but I'm not sure. I don't want to blindly start suggesting some dangerous commands to try from a LiveCD.

I used a custom layout with no LVMs. I believe made /root primary at about 40G, /swap non-primary at 4G, and /home primary at 105G.

Thanks,

[pete_1967]

Originally Posted by leigh123linux

Do what I do , don't bother answering

I do 99.9999% of time but no-one's perfect

[aleph]

Originally Posted by theAdmiral

I used a custom layout with no LVMs. I believe made /root primary at about 40G, /swap non-primary at 4G, and /home primary at 105G.

Thanks,

What the h3ll is that? You gave whole 40 gigs to /root? On it's own partition? I guess you mean /, the root directory as a mount point, not /root, which is the home directory of the root user.

But anyway. Since you can read/write to the your partitions without any problems, why do you think it is encryption that is blocking VMWare? If there's a problem with encryption you won't be able to mount the partitions or use them at all.

Once you've got the encrypted partitions mounted, the en/de-crypto is transparent to all user processes (duh). If for some reason VMWare wants to look for the disk partition device file which it thinks should be needing, tell it to look under /dev/mapper for the luks-xxxxxxx files which are decrypted block device files for the partitions. The file /etc/fstab or the output of "df" will tell you which device file is mounted at which mountpoint (directory).

Not that I'm familiar with VMWare or understanding what you want to do, though, so I'm probably totally off-topic here.

P.S.

This page may possibly help you understand the ideas behind disk encryption if you think you're a "noob".