Ubuntu – Ubuntu 17.10 to 18.04 encrypted /home

18.04encryptionupgrade

1. What will happen when upgrading Ubuntu 17.10 with encrypted /home to Ubuntu 18.04?

Bionic Beaver Release Notes

Other base system changes since 16.04 LTS:

The installer no longer offers the encrypted home option using ecryptfs-utils. It is recommended to use full-disk encryption instead for this release.
Launchpad Bug #1756840

2. Will 18.04 be able to use encrypted (ecryptfs) /home ?

edit: 3 is now a standalone Question

Best Answer

I did a trial install of 18.04 Beta Lubuntu on a system with an encrypted home. This system has separate / and /home partitions, so I was doing a "Something Else" install, formatting and installing to /, and not touching /home.

Every other time I've done this (with older versions of the installer) on the screen where you put in your username, at the bottom 3 options appeared, one of which was "encrypt your home directory" or words to that effect. This option was always ticked and grayed out (because the installer knew that the home directory was encrypted). This didn't happen this install - the option was not offered at all- and when the install was complete, I couldn't log in.

To fix this, I had to reboot, switch to a terminal login (Ctrl+Alt+F1), and install ecryptfs-utils. Another reboot and I could log in.

There was another user on the same PC with a different encrypted home. I could never manage to log in that account. I finally deleted the user, re-added them with encrypted home, and reloaded their home directory from backup.

This was all quite a hassle and I probably won't be encrypting home directories any more.