Ubuntu – Will an external HDD encrypted with 17.10 be accessible with 18.04 after an upgrade

18.04cryptsetupencryptionexternal-hddluks

I'm currently on 17.10 and don't use encryption on my internal drives
but have an external USB disk which is encrypted. I use it for backups.

Because I am was not sure whether I use ecryptfs or cryptsetup
I show the steps it took to set up the external disk:

  1. Activities → Disks → Select drive → Create Partition → Format Volume:

  2. Enter Password (twice) → Create

When I plug in the HDD, Ubuntu prompts me to enter the passphrase and then
mounts it. It works like a charm and I'm able to write my backups to that
external disk. There are no .Private folders and no other files besides
the one I put there (plus the lost+found folder). For illustration I
used a 4GB stick here but the steps were the same with the actual disk.

From some comments I learned this happens to be cryptsetup then and not
ecryptfs.

What will happen when I upgrade to 18.04? Given 18.04 doesn't support
encryption by default, I'm afraid I cannot restore my backups any longer.

Will it make a difference when I don't upgrade but do a fresh install?

Best Answer

You should have no trouble mounting the external drive as long as you have cryptsetup:

sudo apt install cryptsetup

Once this is installed you will be able to mount the drive via file browser.

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