Flint 2 encrypted external storage?

Technical Support for Routers
1

Currently running the latest stable 4.6.2 firmware on my Flint 2 and I was wondering if it is possible to use the OpenWRT guide here https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/storage/disk.encryption for encrypting external media with Luks? I'm a total noob with command line stuff and have never used Luks. If it's possible to enable it and be able to share via samba or webdav locally, I would like some input on how to go about it from any of you seasoned professionals.

PS, If any devs see this, it would be nice to see something available in the GUI to enable this feature for noobs like me :slight_smile:

2

Is there a reason why you're looking to encrypt it if you're sharing it locally?

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3

LUKS might be possible, but I would not recommend it for different reasons.

The first reason would be that a router isn't a PC nor a server - LUKS will steal performance, which might cause trouble. Second: The router itself isn't secure enough, so protecting some plugged in USB device does not really make sense. As @zetix mentioned previously somehow: It's weird to encrypt data you are going to share locally anyway.

4

Yes, for encrypted backups.

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation.

5

Another possible way would be to create a veracrypt container on the drive and then access the container via the veracrypt software on the client machine.

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6

It is certainly possible with LUKS, also like VeraCrypt LUKS has a way to mount something in a form of a file container, if you install cryptsetup it installs luks too, you may need some crypto kmods too, openwrt has some usefull wikis about this.

This means it is a encrypted file which can mount like a external disk but then from your usb stick.

Ive used this on my mochabin before :+1:

Though... As for a backup solution i will say don't do it, the LUKS container might not be so much resource intensive, but if you use samba to copy things from A -> B that will be heavily cpu utilisation.

And the cpu is really needed for smooth internet too :sweat_smile:

You might want to use a second box for this.

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7

I would suggest Cryptomator instead of VeraCrypt.

It's built for cloud storage and encrypts each file individually instead of a container approach like VeraCrypt.

This way, you won't need to upload/download the entire encryption volume on VeraCrypt.

Encryption would also occur on the client instead of the router.

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