CrunchBang Linux

nunolf

Member

From: Amsterdam

Registered: 2012-09-11

Posts: 14

What happens to /home during a re-install if inside a crypted device?

Dear *,

If you are impatiente, just skip to last paragraph!

A long time ago I discovered the power of installing (at least) / and /home in separate partitions. As everyone knows, in case of need we can just re-install/upgrade/downgrade/... the OS keeping the /home data safe.

I decided it was time to try out the crypsetup for the first time. While installing #! I left /boot outside an a physical partition to be encrypted (with LVM support) where several logical volume's (LV's) were created (/, /home/, /opt, swap, ...).

The system boots just fine, no worries.
But I decided to try out a different #! release ... and I realized that everything that is inside the crypto partition is re-written. After thinking a bit more, I got to the conclusion that it makes perfect sense. After all, this crypsetup is all about security.

I just want to confirm that there's no way for me to keep the /home LV intact between OS (re)-installations, if this LV is inside a crypted physical device.

Cheers,
N.