Portable GELI: A portable version of GELI on GNU/Linux

bijanebrahimi.github.io

50 points·codetrotter··5 comments

Interesting. But I'd think openzfs native encryption would be preferable in most use-cases?

FreeBSD's geli is more similar to Linux's dm-crypt. Of course with (Open)ZFS native encryption finally available for both FreeBSD and Linux, you could also compare them to zvols.

don't forget ecryptfs, which is what drives android storage encryption most of the time.

I have some archive data stored on GELI drives; this is a welcome development. Yes, ZFS has encryption, but it comes necessarily along with the rest of ZFS. GELI is a much more straightforward way to deliver an encrypted block device compared to an encrypted Zvol.

> I have some archive data stored on GELI drives; this is a welcome development.

Sure, I have a few luks encrypted drives (having run Linux, not freebsd).

But I'm inclined to move them over to zfs.

> GELI is a much more straightforward way to deliver an encrypted block device compared to an encrypted Zvol.

Maybe if you need an encrypted block device - but with zfs in Linux and freebsd as standard, experimental support on windows, Mac - I'm not sure I agree geli/cryptsetup is an easier way to deliver an encrypted (at rest) filesystem.

More to the point - between experimental geli support on Linux, and stable zfs on Linux and freebsd - I would strongly prefer zfs. (or freebsd and geli for accessing archives that are tricky to move over to zfs for some reason).

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