We haven’t heard much about eCryptfs in recent years for that stackable in-tree Linux file-system providing per-directory encryption support. The FSCRYPT framework has shown its strong capabilities in recent years with various file-systems, Canonical hasn’t been pursuing its user home directory encryption like it did years ago for the Ubuntu desktop, and full disk encryption is the most secure approach for ensuring data security on your system. But to some surprise with Linux 7.0 there are the most patches to eCryptfs that we have seen in a while.
With Linux 7.0 there are a number of eCryptfs fixes now merged to mainline. Tyler Hicks, former Canonical engineer turned Microsoft Linux kernel engineer and eCryptfs kernel maintainer, issued a pull request for Linux 7.0 with wanting to pick back up activity around eCryptfs:
“This is the first pull request that I’ve sent to you in some time. Christian has been picking up sporadic eCryptfs bug fixes, support for new VFS hooks/functionality, etc., (thanks again!) but I have time/interest to get more involved and received Christian’s blessing. This pull request consists of some really minor typo fixes that fell through the cracks and some more recent code cleanups.
I’ve dusted off my notes on creating pull requests and think I got everything correct but let me know if anything looks off.”
The pull request was honored and brought various eCryptfs fixes to Linux 7.0. There are some minor code fixes, avoiding deprecated strcpy usage, and other minor changes but at least it’s the most activity seen for eCryptfs in a while.
Those unfamiliar with eCryptfs can learn more about this stackable file-system via eCryptfs.org.
