encryptionhard drivepartitioningSecurity
When I boot from an USB stick into my laptop I am able to mount and connect through chroot to the my hard drive and browse my files without a problem, while this has been something very very useful in times, I figure it would also be way to easy to access my files and installation for someone else.
What alternatives do I have to secure my hard drive?
I read your ubuntu forum thread. Since the problem is the kernel, why don't you just update it? I'm thinking you should be able to just download the latest kernel, import your current configuration, and compile it after adding SATA 6.0 gB/s support.
I see a second option too, and more in line with the Ubuntu way: PPA. Check out UbuntuUpdates.org, they have a ppa that backports the Narwhale kernels to Lucid. I don't see why that shouldn't also work for Maverick. Go read their site first, and make sure this is something you really want to do, because it's definitely not supported; but it looks as easy as:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kernel-ppa/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo synaptic
Once you've got Synaptic open, you need to edit the repository so that you're accessing what is intended for Lucid.
http://ppa.launchpad.net/kernel-ppa/ppa/ubuntu lucid main. Click to highlight it, then click Edit.lucid, not maverick.
I trust you can take it from here?
For posterity, here is the bug fix report with all the juicy info. In short, support for your controller isn't around till Linux Kernel 2.6.37-rc4, aka Ubuntu Kernel 2.6.37-8.x.
To test this answer without buggering about your case and controllers and cables, please update your question with the output of lspci before, and after. You should see the controller going from Unknown to whatever it actually is.
You don't have cryptsetup installed on your second computer, install it via: sudo apt-get install cryptsetup
Once you've installed it, double click on the encrypted volume again and it should mount for you.
[Edit]
The error from your mount command mount: unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member' tells us that it's an LVM group, and needs to be mounted slightly differently.
Hopefully the following will provide the information you need to get it mounted, based upon my system.
$ sudo pvs
PV VG Fmt Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sda2 ubuntu lvm2 a-- 99.51g 0
This tells us that the volume, ubuntu is on the physical volume /dev/sda2. We then need to use the lvdisplay command to list the logical volumes in the group.
$ sudo lvdisplay /dev/ubuntu
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/ubuntu/swap
LV Name swap
VG Name ubuntu
<snip>
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/ubuntu/home
LV Name home
VG Name ubuntu
<snip>
--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/ubuntu/root
LV Name root
VG Name ubuntu
<snip>
From the above we can see that I've got a home, root and swap. To mount the home partition from this group I would run the following command:
$ mount /dev/ubuntu/home /mnt/disk
If you're unsure how to modify this to suit your needs, edit your question again with the output of the pvs and lvdisplay commands. You might want to take a look at Formatting Help as well.
Best Answer
One word: LUKS
LUKS is a full-disk encryption method. At boot-time, you have to enter a passphrase. With the given passphrase, a key slot is unlocked and the actual key for encrypting the data is retrieved. LUKS can be seen as a encrypted partition which holds another partition.
Because most users have multiple partitions (the
/partition and swap), it's often used with LVM to avoid having to enter a password for each LUKS encrypted partition. LVM can be seen as a special partition holding multiple partitions (simplified). The structure would look like this:Using the alternate CD, you can create a new installation using LVM + LUKS. Within the disk partitioning step, an option is visible for copying data from another partition. If you do not mind reinstalling the whole system, backup your files and settings and do a new installation using the alternate CD.
For a more correct documentation of LUKS (cryptsetup), see Cryptsetup FAQ.