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There seems to be two different steps in the Ubuntu Server 14.04 installation that involve encryption. The first asks if I want to encrypt my home directory:

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The second has an option for encrypted LVM:

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Are these two different encryption procedures? If I do both is my drive doubly encrypted? Why would I do one and not the other?

I don't think this is a duplicate of When installing I'm given the option of encrypting my home folder -- what does this do? because that solution does not explain why there are seemingly two encryption steps being offered.

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adamconkey
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1 Answers1

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They are completely separate and other then "encryption" they have nothing in common.

LUKS

LUKS / LVM encrypts everything but /boot.

With LUKS, almost everything is decrypted when you boot, /swap, /home, /, etc. You can of course configure this differently, but this is how the defaults work.

eCryptfs

eCryptfs or ecryptfs, in contrast, usually encrypts /home/username.

With ecryptfs, your home directory is decrypted when you log in. You would use this when you need to encrypt your personal data in /home separately from the system.

See:

Artfaith
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