crypttab
systemd
Documentation
Miloslav
Trmac
mitr@redhat.com
Documentation
Lennart
Poettering
lennart@poettering.net
crypttab
5
crypttab
Configuration for encrypted block devices
/etc/crypttab
Description
The /etc/crypttab file
describes encrypted block devices that are set up
during system boot.
Empty lines and lines starting with the #
character are ignored. Each of the remaining lines
describes one encrypted block device, fields on the
line are delimited by white space. The first two
fields are mandatory, the remaining two are
optional.
Setting up encrypted block devices using this file
supports three encryption modes: LUKS, TrueCrypt and plain.
See cryptsetup8
for more information about each mode. When no mode is specified
in the options field and the block device contains a LUKS
signature, it is opened as a LUKS device; otherwise, it is
assumed to be in raw dm-crypt (plain mode) format.
The first field contains the name of the
resulting encrypted block device; the device is set up
within /dev/mapper/.
The second field contains a path to the
underlying block device or file, or a specification of a block
device via UUID= followed by the
UUID.
The third field specifies the encryption
password. If the field is not present or the password
is set to none or -,
the password has to be manually entered during system boot.
Otherwise, the field is interpreted as a absolute path to
a file containing the encryption password. For swap encryption,
/dev/urandom or the hardware
device /dev/hw_random can be used
as the password file; using
/dev/random may prevent boot
completion if the system does not have enough entropy
to generate a truly random encryption key.
The fourth field, if present, is a
comma-delimited list of options. The following
options are recognized:
discard
Allow discard requests to be
passed through the encrypted block device. This
improves performance on SSD storage but has
security implications.
cipher=
Specifies the cipher to use. See
cryptsetup8
for possible values and the default value of
this option. A cipher with unpredictable IV
values, such as aes-cbc-essiv:sha256,
is recommended.
hash=
Specifies the hash to use for
password hashing. See
cryptsetup8
for possible values and the default value of
this option.
keyfile-offset=
Specifies the number of bytes to
skip at the start of the key file. See
cryptsetup8
for possible values and the default value of
this option.
keyfile-size=
Specifies the maximum number
of bytes to read from the key file. See
cryptsetup8
for possible values and the default value of
this option. This option is ignored in plain
encryption mode, as the key file size is then
given by the key size.
luks
Force LUKS mode. When this mode
is used, the following options are ignored since
they are provided by the LUKS header on the
device: cipher=,
hash=,
size=.
noauto
This device will not be
automatically unlocked on boot.
nofail
The system will not wait for the
device to show up and be unlocked at boot, and
not fail the boot if it does not show up.
plain
Force plain encryption mode.
read-onlyreadonly
Set up the encrypted block
device in read-only mode.
size=
Specifies the key size
in bits. See
cryptsetup8
for possible values and the default value of
this option.
swap
The encrypted block device will
be used as a swap device, and will be formatted
accordingly after setting up the encrypted
block device, with
mkswap8.
This option implies plain.
WARNING: Using the swap
option will destroy the contents of the named
partition during every boot, so make sure the
underlying block device is specified correctly.
tcrypt
Use TrueCrypt encryption mode.
When this mode is used, the following options are
ignored since they are provided by the TrueCrypt
header on the device or do not apply:
cipher=,
hash=,
keyfile-offset=,
keyfile-size=,
size=.
When this mode is used, the passphrase is
read from the key file given in the third field.
Only the first line of this file is read,
excluding the new line character.
Note that the TrueCrypt format uses both
passphrase and key files to derive a password
for the volume. Therefore, the passphrase and
all key files need to be provided. Use
tcrypt-keyfile= to provide
the absolute path to all key files. When using
an empty passphrase in combination with one or
more key files, use /dev/null
as the password file in the third field.
tcrypt-hidden
Use the hidden TrueCrypt volume.
This implies tcrypt.
This will map the hidden volume that is
inside of the volume provided in the second
field. Please note that there is no protection
for the hidden volume if the outer volume is
mounted instead. See
cryptsetup8
for more information on this limitation.
tcrypt-keyfile=
Specifies the absolute path to a
key file to use for a TrueCrypt volume. This
implies tcrypt and can be
used more than once to provide several key
files.
See the entry for tcrypt
on the behavior of the passphrase and key files
when using TrueCrypt encryption mode.
tcrypt-system
Use TrueCrypt in system
encryption mode. This implies
tcrypt.
Please note that when using this mode, the
whole device needs to be given in the second
field instead of the partition. For example: if
/dev/sda2 is the system
encrypted TrueCrypt patition, /dev/sda
has to be given.
timeout=
Specifies the timeout for
querying for a password. If no unit is
specified, seconds is used. Supported units are
s, ms, us, min, h, d. A timeout of 0 waits
indefinitely (which is the default).
tmp
The encrypted block device will
be prepared for using it as /tmp;
it will be formatted using
mke2fs8.
This option implies plain.
WARNING: Using the tmp
option will destroy the contents of the named
partition during every boot, so make sure the
underlying block device is specified correctly.
tries=
Specifies the maximum number of
times the user is queried for a password.
The default is 3. If set to 0, the user is
queried for a password indefinitely.
verify
If the encryption password is
read from console, it has to be entered twice to
prevent typos.
At early boot and when the system manager
configuration is reloaded, this file is translated into
native systemd units
by systemd-cryptsetup-generator8.
Example
/etc/crypttab example
Set up four encrypted block devices. One using
LUKS for normal storage, another one for usage as a swap
device and two TrueCrypt volumes.
luks UUID=2505567a-9e27-4efe-a4d5-15ad146c258b
swap /dev/sda7 /dev/urandom swap
truecrypt /dev/sda2 /etc/container_password tcrypt
hidden /mnt/tc_hidden /null tcrypt-hidden,tcrypt-keyfile=/etc/keyfile
See Also
systemd1,
systemd-cryptsetup@.service8,
systemd-cryptsetup-generator8,
cryptsetup8,
mkswap8,
mke2fs8