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A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

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Simple safe encryption for a server? (feddit.uk)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi, I'm running a ubuntu based backup server. And was wondering if there's a simple way to encrypt my drives in case they get swiped or something by a break in. But also in a way that the computer can be restarted and decrypt the drive without me needing to stick a key in everytime. Any ideas? It seems basic but I'm not an expert on all these newfangled encryption terminology, so would like something idiot proof (by idiot proof, not idiot enough to lose/forget the decryption key)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

If you want simple you'll have to manually decrypt each time it needs doing.

If you want it to be "automatic" then your best bet is something network based. A "simple" would be to just have a script ssh's somewhere, pulls the decryption key, and then decrypts the disks. There's plenty of flaws with this though as while a threat actor couldn't swipe a single encrypted disk they could just log in as root, get your script, and pull the decryption key themselves.

The optimal solution would be to also encrypt the root partition but now you need to do network based decryption at boot which adds further complexity. I've previously used Clevis and Tang to do this.

I personally don'tencrypt my server root and only encrypt my data disks. Then ssh in on a reboot or power event and manually decrypt. It is the simplest and most secure option.