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:
The second has an option for encrypted LVM:
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.
Best Answer
They are completely separate and other then "encryption" they have nothing in common.
LUKS / LVM encrypts everything but /boot.
ecrypts or an encrypted /home encrytps /home/your_user name
With LUKS, everything is decrypted when you boot, /swap, /home, / , etc. You can of course configure this differently , but this is how the defaults work.
With ecrypts, your home direcroy is decrypted when you log in. You would use this if you needed to encrypt your personal data in /home/ separate from the system.
See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedHome and When installing I'm given the option of encrypting my home folder -- what does this do?