Bug 1438413

Summary: Add option to encrypt a user's home directory
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Jan Niklas Hasse <jhasse>
Component: anacondaAssignee: Anaconda Maintenance Team <anaconda-maint-list>
Status: CLOSED EOL QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 28CC: anaconda-maint-list, digitalfreak, g.kaviyarasu, jkonecny, jonathan, mkolman, netwiz, vanmeeuwen+fedora, vponcova
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Last Closed: 2019-05-28 20:03:01 UTC Type: Bug
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Description Jan Niklas Hasse 2017-04-03 11:48:16 UTC
Description of problem:
Currently it's only possible to enable full disk encryption when installing Fedora. An option to encrypt only the user's home directory would be helpful for workstations with multiple user accounts.

Additional info:
A guide how to manually encrypt the home directory in Fedora: https://cloud-ninja.org/2014/04/05/fedora-encrypting-your-home-directory/
How Ubuntu does this: https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ximage83.png.pagespeed.gp+jp+jw+pj+ws+js+rj+rp+rw+ri+cp+md.ic.Q3l_7oXwbw.png

Comment 1 Rafal Luzynski 2017-06-08 16:37:17 UTC
I think I also saw OpenSUSE having this feature. It's worth mentioning because OpenSUSE is also RPM-based and thus similar to Fedora.

Comment 2 Steven Haigh 2017-11-09 10:19:39 UTC
This is window-dressing at best.... The security improvements are almost zero.

Having an unencrypted / unprotected root partition means data can be exfiltrated easily by any method with root access - including being set up via a live USB image to copy all data that *was* encrypted to an unencrypted location when the user unlocks their home directory.

Looks like a good idea on paper (or screenshots), but is useless in providing any type of real protection.

Comment 3 Jan Niklas Hasse 2017-11-09 12:42:18 UTC
The same is true for full disc encryption though: If someone can boot into a live USB image he could also replace the bootloader so that it sends the password over the internet.

Furthermore nobody said this this method can't be used in addition to encrypted /.

Comment 4 Jiri Konecny 2017-11-10 07:24:55 UTC
Right now you can encrypt your specified partition in custom partitioning or in blivet-gui.

That means you have 2 installation methods how to encrypt only your home.

This can of course be added to the autopart option too, however, it is really not a priority because it is already doable by other methods.

So or so, thanks for the idea we will get back to it in future.

Jirka

Comment 5 Fedora End Of Life 2018-05-03 08:37:54 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 26 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 26. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '26'.

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Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not
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version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
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Comment 6 Ben Cotton 2019-05-02 21:52:36 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 28 is nearing its end of life.
On 2019-May-28 Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for
Fedora 28. It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases
that are no longer maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as
EOL if it remains open with a Fedora 'version' of '28'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 28 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 7 Ben Cotton 2019-05-28 20:03:01 UTC
Fedora 28 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2019-05-28. Fedora 28 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
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current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.