dm-crypt/Swap encryption
Depending on requirements, different methods may be used to encrypt the swap partition which are described in the following. A setup where the swap encryption is re-initialised on reboot (with a new encryption) provides higher data protection, because it avoids sensitive file fragments which may have been swapped out a long time ago without being overwritten. However, re-encrypting swap also forbids using a suspend-to-disk feature generally.
Contents
Without suspend-to-disk support
In systems where suspend-to-disk (hibernation) is not a desired feature, /etc/crypttab
can be set up to decrypt the swap partition with a random password with plain dm-crypt at boot-time. The random password is discarded on shutdown, leaving behind only encrypted, inaccessible data in the swap device.
To enable this feature, simply uncomment the line beginning with swap
in /etc/crypttab
. Change the <device>
parameter to the name of your swap device. For example, it will look something like this:
/etc/crypttab
# <name> <device> <password> <options> swap /dev/sdX# /dev/urandom swap,cipher=aes-xts-plain64,size=256
This will map /dev/sdX#
to /dev/mapper/swap
as a swap partition that can be added in /etc/fstab
like a normal swap. If you had a non-encrypted swap partition before, do not forget to disable it - or re-use its fstab entry by changing the device to /dev/mapper/swap
. The default options should be sufficient for most usage. For other options and an explanation of each column, see crypttab(5) as well as point cryptsetup FAQ 2.3.
/dev/sda
, /dev/sdb
) changes upon each boot. Options are:
- Use
by-id
andby-path
paths. However, these are both are susceptible to hardware changes. See Persistent block device naming#by-id and by-path. - Use an LVM logical volume's name.
- Use the method described in #UUID and LABEL. Labels and UUIDS cannot be used directly because of the recreation and re-encryption of the swap device on every boot with
mkswap
, see cryptsetup FAQ.
To use a by-id
persistent device naming instead of kernel simple naming, first identify the swap device:
# find -L /dev/disk -samefile /dev/sdaX
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD2500BEVT-22ZCT0_WD-WXE908VF0470-partX /dev/disk/by-id/wwn-0x60015ee0000b237f-partX
Then use as a persistent reference for the /dev/sdX#
example partition (if two results are returned as above, choose either one of them):
/etc/crypttab
# <name> <device> <password> <options> swap /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD2500BEVT-22ZCT0_WD-WXE908VF0470-partX /dev/urandom swap,cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256,size=256
After a reboot to activate the encrypted swap, you will note that running swapon -s
shows an arbitrary device mapper entry (e.g. /dev/dm-1
) for it, while the lsblk
command shows crypt in the FSTYPE
column. Due to fresh encryption each boot, the UUID for /dev/mapper/swap
will change every time.
UUID and LABEL
It's dangerous to use crypttab swap with simple kernel device names like /dev/sdX#
or even /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SERIAL-partX
. A small change in your device names or partitioning layout and /etc/crypttab
will see your valuable data formatted on the next boot. Same if you use PARTUUID and then decide to use that partition for something else without removing the crypttab entry first.
It is more reliable to identify the correct partition by giving it a genuine UUID or LABEL. By default that does not work because dm-crypt and mkswap
would simply overwrite any content on that partition which would remove the UUID and LABEL too; however, it is possible to specify a swap offset. This allows you to create a very small, empty, bogus filesystem with no other purpose than providing a persistent UUID or LABEL for the swap encryption.
Create a filesystem with label of your choice:
# mkfs.ext2 -L cryptswap /dev/sdX# 1M
The unusual parameter after the device name limits the filesystem size to 1 MiB, leaving room for encrypted swap behind it.
# blkid /dev/sdX#
/dev/sdX#: LABEL="cryptswap" UUID="b72c384e-bd3c-49aa-b7a7-a28ea81a2605" TYPE="ext2"
With this, /dev/sdX#
now can easily be identified either by UUID or LABEL, regardless of how its device name or even partition number might change in the future. All that's left is the /etc/crypttab
and /etc/fstab
entries:
/etc/crypttab
# <name> <device> <password> <options> swap LABEL=cryptswap /dev/urandom swap,offset=2048,cipher=aes-xts-plain64,size=512
Note the offset: it's 2048 sectors of 512 bytes, thus 1 MiB. This way the encrypted swap will not affect the filesystem LABEL/UUID, and data alignment works out as well.
/etc/fstab
# <filesystem> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> /dev/mapper/swap none swap defaults 0 0
Using this setup, the cryptswap will only try to use the partition with the corresponding LABEL, regardless of what its device name may be. Should you decide to use the partition for something else, by formatting it the cryptswap LABEL would also be gone, so cryptswap will not overwrite it on your next boot.
With suspend-to-disk support
To be able to resume after suspending the computer to disk (hibernate), it is required to keep the swap space intact. Therefore, it is required to have a pre-existent LUKS swap partition or file, which can be stored on the disk or input manually at startup.
The following three methods are alternatives for setting up an encrypted swap for suspend-to-disk. If you apply any of them, be aware that critical data swapped out by the system may potentially stay in the swap over a long period (i.e. until it is overwritten). To reduce this risk consider setting up a system job which re-encrypts swap, e.g. each time the system is going into a regular shut-down, along with the method of your choice.
LVM on LUKS
A simple way to realize encrypted swap with suspend-to-disk support is by using a swap LVM device on the same encryption layer as the root volume, so that both are opened by the encrypt
hook at boot. Follow the instructions on Dm-crypt/Encrypting an entire system#LVM on LUKS and then just configure the required kernel parameters.
Assuming you have setup LVM on LUKS with a swap logical volume (at /dev/MyStorage/swap
for example), all you need to do is add the resume mkinitcpio hook, and add the resume=/dev/MyStorage/swap
kernel parameter to your boot loader. For GRUB, this can be done by appending it to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
variable in /etc/default/grub
.
/etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="... resume=/dev/MyStorage/swap"
then run grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
to update GRUB's configuration file.
To add the mkinitcpio hook, edit the following line in mkinitcpio.conf
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
HOOKS=(... encrypt lvm2 resume ... filesystems ...)
then regenerate the initramfs.
mkinitcpio hook
encrypt
hook, which can only unlock a single device (FS#23182). With sd-encrypt
multiple devices may be unlocked (see Dm-crypt/System configuration#Using sd-encrypt hook), but swap autodetection is not available yet. systemd issue 4878
If the swap device is on a different device from that of the root file system, it will not be opened by the encrypt
hook, i.e. the resume will take place before /etc/crypttab
can be used, therefore it is required to create a hook in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
to open the swap LUKS device before resuming.
If you want to use a partition which is currently used by the system, you have to disable it first:
# swapoff /dev/<device>
Also make sure you remove any line in /etc/crypttab
pointing to this device.
If you are reusing an existing swap partition, and if the partition is on a GPT partition table, you will need use gdisk to set the partition attribute 63 "do not automount" on it. This will prevent systemd-gpt-auto-generator from discovering and enabling the partition at boot.
The following setup has the disadvantage of having to insert an additional passphrase for the swap partition manually on every boot.
/boot
is unencrypted. Please read about the issue reported here. Alternatively, use a gnupg-encrypted keyfile as per https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=120181
To format the encrypted container for the swap partition, create a keyslot for a user-memorizable passphrase.
# cryptsetup luksFormat --type luks2 /dev/<device>
Open the partition in /dev/mapper
:
# cryptsetup open /dev/<device> swapDevice
Create a swap filesystem inside the mapped partition:
# mkswap /dev/mapper/swapDevice
Now you have to create a hook to open the swap at boot time. You can either install and configure mkinitcpio-openswapAUR, or follow the following instructions. Create a hook file containing the open command:
/etc/initcpio/hooks/openswap
run_hook () { cryptsetup open /dev/<device> swapDevice }
for opening the swap device by typing your password or
/etc/initcpio/hooks/openswap
run_hook () { ## Optional: To avoid race conditions x=0; while [ ! -b /dev/mapper/<root-device> ] && [ $x -le 10 ]; do x=$((x+1)) sleep .2 done ## End of optional mkdir crypto_key_device mount /dev/mapper/<root-device> crypto_key_device cryptsetup open --key-file crypto_key_device/<path-to-the-key> /dev/<device> swapDevice umount crypto_key_device }
for opening the swap device by loading a keyfile from a crypted root device.
On some computers race conditions may occur when mkinitcpio tries to mount the device before the decryption process and device enumeration is completed. The commented Optional block will delay the boot process up to 2 seconds until the root device is ready to mount.
--allow-discards
has to get added to the cryptsetup line in the openswap hook above. See Dm-crypt/Specialties#Discard/TRIM support for solid state drives (SSD) or SSD for more information on discard. Additionally you have to add the mount option 'discard' to your fstab entry for the swap device.Then create and edit the hook setup file:
/etc/initcpio/install/openswap
build () { add_runscript } help () { cat<<HELPEOF This opens the swap encrypted partition /dev/<device> in /dev/mapper/swapDevice HELPEOF }
Add the hook openswap
in the HOOKS
array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
, before filesystem
but after encrypt
. Do not forget to add the resume
hook after openswap
.
HOOKS=(... encrypt openswap resume filesystems ...)
Add the mapped partition to /etc/fstab
by adding the following line:
/dev/mapper/swapDevice swap swap defaults 0 0
Set up your system to resume from /dev/mapper/swapDevice
. For example, if you use GRUB with kernel hibernation support, add the kernel parameter resume=/dev/mapper/swapDevice
to GRUB by appending it to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
variable in /etc/default/grub
. A kernel line with encrypted root and swap partitions can look like this:
kernel /vmlinuz-linux cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:rootDevice root=/dev/mapper/rootDevice resume=/dev/mapper/swapDevice ro
At boot time, the openswap
hook will open the swap partition so the kernel resume may use it. If you use special hooks for resuming from hibernation, make sure they are placed after openswap
in the HOOKS
array. Please note that because of initrd opening swap, there is no entry for swapDevice in /etc/crypttab
needed in this case.
Using a swap file
A swap file can be used to reserve swap-space within an existing partition and may also be setup inside an encrypted blockdevice's partition. When resuming from a swapfile the resume
hook must be supplied with the passphrase to unlock the device where the swap file is located.
To create it, first choose a mapped partition (e.g. /dev/mapper/rootDevice
) whose mounted filesystem (e.g. /
) contains enough free space to create a swapfile with the desired size.
Now create the swap file (e.g. /swapfile
) inside the mounted filesystem of your chosen mapped partition. Be sure to activate it with swapon
and also add it to your /etc/fstab
file afterward. Note that the swapfile's previous contents remain transparent over reboots.
Set up your system to resume from your chosen mapped partition. For example, if you use GRUB with kernel hibernation support, add resume=
your chosen mapped partition and resume_offset=
see calculation command below to the kernel line in your GRUB configuration (typically at /etc/default/grub
). A line with encrypted root partition can look like this:
kernel /vmlinuz-linux cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:rootDevice root=/dev/mapper/rootDevice resume=/dev/mapper/rootDevice resume_offset=123456789 ro
The resume_offset
of the swap-file points to the start (extent zero) of the file and can be identified like this:
# filefrag -v /swapfile | awk '{if($1=="0:"){print $4}}'
Add the resume
hook to your etc/mkinitcpio.conf
file and regenerate the initramfs afterward:
HOOKS=(... encrypt resume ... filesystems ...)
If you use a USB keyboard to enter your decryption password, then the keyboard
module must appear in front of the encrypt
hook, as shown below. Otherwise, you will not be able to boot your computer because you could not enter your decryption password to decrypt your Linux root partition! (If you still have this problem after adding keyboard
, try usbinput
, though this is deprecated.)
HOOKS=(... keyboard encrypt ...)
Known Issues
-
Stopped (with error) /dev/dm-1
in logs. See systemd issue 1620.