Bug 846140

Hi All,

I am coming from the "Community": Scientific Linux 6.2, 64 bit.  Would one of our interpret heroes at Red Hat please fix this for me?

I just encrypted my backup drives.  In the process, I found that the man page for crypttab is missing a bunch of necessary stuff that causes all kinds of problems.  Please reference the following bugs:

Crypttab does not mount volume at boot
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=845701

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=845698
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=845698

Many thanks,
-T

That being said, I would like to suggest some change to the crypttab manual page:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Old section for parameter three (password):

    The  third  field  specifies the encryption password.  If the field is not present or the password is set to none, the password has to be manually entered during system boot. Otherwise the field is interpreted  as  a  path  to  a  file  containing  the encryption password.  For swap encryption /dev/urandom can be used as the password file; using /dev/random may prevent boot completion if the system does not have enough  entropy  to generate a truly random encryption key.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Proposed new section three:

    The  third  field  specifies the encryption password.  This field does not support spaces, whether escaped with back slashes or quotes.  Back slashes or quotes will cause this field to be interpreted as a path to a password file.  If you wish to use a password with spaces in it, please use a password file.  

   If the field is not present or the password is set to none, the password has to be manually entered during system boot. Otherwise the field is interpreted  as  a  path  to  a  file  containing  the encryption password.

    If using a password file, please note that the entire contents of the password file is used, including all lines and any hidden characters you can not see with a text editor ("vi" and "vi -b" included) such as line feeds.  A password file without a line feed can be created with the "echo" command's "-n" option.  For example:
     echo -n "pass phrase" > MyPasswordFile

You can test for the presence of a line feed in your password file with "hexdump -c".  For example
    hexdump -c MyPasswordFile
    0000000   p   a   s   s       p   h   r   a   s   e
  
The lack of a "\n" at the end means you do not have a line feed at the end of your file.

    For swap encryption /dev/urandom can be used as the password file; using /dev/random may prevent boot completion if the system does not have enough  entropy  to generate a truly random encryption key.