What the ..?

LUKS is the standard for Linux hard disk encryption. By providing a standard on-disk-format, it does not only facilitate compatibility among distributions, but also provides secure management of multiple user passwords. In contrast to existing solution, LUKS stores all setup necessary setup information in the partition header, enabling the user to transport or migrate his data seamlessly.

While LUKS is a standard on-disk format, there is also a reference implementation. LUKS for dm-crypt is implemented in an enhanced version of cryptsetup.

Design

LUKS was designed according to TKS1, a template design developed in TKS1 for secure key setup. LUKS closely reassembles the structure recommended in the TKS1 paper, but also adds meta data for cipher setup management and LUKS also supports for multiple keys/passphrases.

Why LUKS?

• compatiblity via standardization,
• secure against low entropy attacks,
• support for multiple keys,
• effective passphrase revocation,
• free

How to get LUKS?

There are several sub project, trying to bring LUKS to your desktop. Most efforts concentrate or built apon cryptsetup. cryptsetup is used to conveniently setup dm-crypt managed block devices under Linux. The former version of cryptsetup only had low-level operations for dm-crypt ready, and around version cryptsetup-luks 1.0.5 was renamed to be the official version of cryptsetup.

LUKS is also cross-platform standard. Thanks to FreeOTFE, you get LUKS for Win32. Of course, you have to use a file-system on your LUKS partition that both OS understand to actually make use of this cross-platform capability (either use ext2fs drivers for windows or use FAT drivers for Linux). For more compatibility stuff see, the Distribution Support Page.

Help!

For LUKS related questions, please use the dm-crypt mailing list, dm-crypt@saout.de. If you want to subscribe just send an empty mail to dm-crypt-subscribe@saout.de.