1===================================== 2Filesystem-level encryption (fscrypt) 3===================================== 4 5Introduction 6============ 7 8fscrypt is a library which filesystems can hook into to support 9transparent encryption of files and directories. 10 11Note: "fscrypt" in this document refers to the kernel-level portion, 12implemented in ``fs/crypto/``, as opposed to the userspace tool 13`fscrypt <https://github.com/google/fscrypt>`_. This document only 14covers the kernel-level portion. For command-line examples of how to 15use encryption, see the documentation for the userspace tool `fscrypt 16<https://github.com/google/fscrypt>`_. Also, it is recommended to use 17the fscrypt userspace tool, or other existing userspace tools such as 18`fscryptctl <https://github.com/google/fscryptctl>`_ or `Android's key 19management system 20<https://source.android.com/security/encryption/file-based>`_, over 21using the kernel's API directly. Using existing tools reduces the 22chance of introducing your own security bugs. (Nevertheless, for 23completeness this documentation covers the kernel's API anyway.) 24 25Unlike dm-crypt, fscrypt operates at the filesystem level rather than 26at the block device level. This allows it to encrypt different files 27with different keys and to have unencrypted files on the same 28filesystem. This is useful for multi-user systems where each user's 29data-at-rest needs to be cryptographically isolated from the others. 30However, except for filenames, fscrypt does not encrypt filesystem 31metadata. 32 33Unlike eCryptfs, which is a stacked filesystem, fscrypt is integrated 34directly into supported filesystems --- currently ext4, F2FS, and 35UBIFS. This allows encrypted files to be read and written without 36caching both the decrypted and encrypted pages in the pagecache, 37thereby nearly halving the memory used and bringing it in line with 38unencrypted files. Similarly, half as many dentries and inodes are 39needed. eCryptfs also limits encrypted filenames to 143 bytes, 40causing application compatibility issues; fscrypt allows the full 255 41bytes (NAME_MAX). Finally, unlike eCryptfs, the fscrypt API can be 42used by unprivileged users, with no need to mount anything. 43 44fscrypt does not support encrypting files in-place. Instead, it 45supports marking an empty directory as encrypted. Then, after 46userspace provides the key, all regular files, directories, and 47symbolic links created in that directory tree are transparently 48encrypted. 49 50Threat model 51============ 52 53Offline attacks 54--------------- 55 56Provided that userspace chooses a strong encryption key, fscrypt 57protects the confidentiality of file contents and filenames in the 58event of a single point-in-time permanent offline compromise of the 59block device content. fscrypt does not protect the confidentiality of 60non-filename metadata, e.g. file sizes, file permissions, file 61timestamps, and extended attributes. Also, the existence and location 62of holes (unallocated blocks which logically contain all zeroes) in 63files is not protected. 64 65fscrypt is not guaranteed to protect confidentiality or authenticity 66if an attacker is able to manipulate the filesystem offline prior to 67an authorized user later accessing the filesystem. 68 69Online attacks 70-------------- 71 72fscrypt (and storage encryption in general) can only provide limited 73protection, if any at all, against online attacks. In detail: 74 75Side-channel attacks 76~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 77 78fscrypt is only resistant to side-channel attacks, such as timing or 79electromagnetic attacks, to the extent that the underlying Linux 80Cryptographic API algorithms are. If a vulnerable algorithm is used, 81such as a table-based implementation of AES, it may be possible for an 82attacker to mount a side channel attack against the online system. 83Side channel attacks may also be mounted against applications 84consuming decrypted data. 85 86Unauthorized file access 87~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 88 89After an encryption key has been added, fscrypt does not hide the 90plaintext file contents or filenames from other users on the same 91system. Instead, existing access control mechanisms such as file mode 92bits, POSIX ACLs, LSMs, or namespaces should be used for this purpose. 93 94(For the reasoning behind this, understand that while the key is 95added, the confidentiality of the data, from the perspective of the 96system itself, is *not* protected by the mathematical properties of 97encryption but rather only by the correctness of the kernel. 98Therefore, any encryption-specific access control checks would merely 99be enforced by kernel *code* and therefore would be largely redundant 100with the wide variety of access control mechanisms already available.) 101 102Kernel memory compromise 103~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 104 105An attacker who compromises the system enough to read from arbitrary 106memory, e.g. by mounting a physical attack or by exploiting a kernel 107security vulnerability, can compromise all encryption keys that are 108currently in use. 109 110However, fscrypt allows encryption keys to be removed from the kernel, 111which may protect them from later compromise. 112 113In more detail, the FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY ioctl (or the 114FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY_ALL_USERS ioctl) can wipe a master 115encryption key from kernel memory. If it does so, it will also try to 116evict all cached inodes which had been "unlocked" using the key, 117thereby wiping their per-file keys and making them once again appear 118"locked", i.e. in ciphertext or encrypted form. 119 120However, these ioctls have some limitations: 121 122- Per-file keys for in-use files will *not* be removed or wiped. 123 Therefore, for maximum effect, userspace should close the relevant 124 encrypted files and directories before removing a master key, as 125 well as kill any processes whose working directory is in an affected 126 encrypted directory. 127 128- The kernel cannot magically wipe copies of the master key(s) that 129 userspace might have as well. Therefore, userspace must wipe all 130 copies of the master key(s) it makes as well; normally this should 131 be done immediately after FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY, without waiting 132 for FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY. Naturally, the same also applies 133 to all higher levels in the key hierarchy. Userspace should also 134 follow other security precautions such as mlock()ing memory 135 containing keys to prevent it from being swapped out. 136 137- In general, decrypted contents and filenames in the kernel VFS 138 caches are freed but not wiped. Therefore, portions thereof may be 139 recoverable from freed memory, even after the corresponding key(s) 140 were wiped. To partially solve this, you can set 141 CONFIG_PAGE_POISONING=y in your kernel config and add page_poison=1 142 to your kernel command line. However, this has a performance cost. 143 144- Secret keys might still exist in CPU registers, in crypto 145 accelerator hardware (if used by the crypto API to implement any of 146 the algorithms), or in other places not explicitly considered here. 147 148Limitations of v1 policies 149~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 150 151v1 encryption policies have some weaknesses with respect to online 152attacks: 153 154- There is no verification that the provided master key is correct. 155 Therefore, a malicious user can temporarily associate the wrong key 156 with another user's encrypted files to which they have read-only 157 access. Because of filesystem caching, the wrong key will then be 158 used by the other user's accesses to those files, even if the other 159 user has the correct key in their own keyring. This violates the 160 meaning of "read-only access". 161 162- A compromise of a per-file key also compromises the master key from 163 which it was derived. 164 165- Non-root users cannot securely remove encryption keys. 166 167All the above problems are fixed with v2 encryption policies. For 168this reason among others, it is recommended to use v2 encryption 169policies on all new encrypted directories. 170 171Key hierarchy 172============= 173 174Master Keys 175----------- 176 177Each encrypted directory tree is protected by a *master key*. Master 178keys can be up to 64 bytes long, and must be at least as long as the 179greater of the key length needed by the contents and filenames 180encryption modes being used. For example, if AES-256-XTS is used for 181contents encryption, the master key must be 64 bytes (512 bits). Note 182that the XTS mode is defined to require a key twice as long as that 183required by the underlying block cipher. 184 185To "unlock" an encrypted directory tree, userspace must provide the 186appropriate master key. There can be any number of master keys, each 187of which protects any number of directory trees on any number of 188filesystems. 189 190Master keys must be real cryptographic keys, i.e. indistinguishable 191from random bytestrings of the same length. This implies that users 192**must not** directly use a password as a master key, zero-pad a 193shorter key, or repeat a shorter key. Security cannot be guaranteed 194if userspace makes any such error, as the cryptographic proofs and 195analysis would no longer apply. 196 197Instead, users should generate master keys either using a 198cryptographically secure random number generator, or by using a KDF 199(Key Derivation Function). The kernel does not do any key stretching; 200therefore, if userspace derives the key from a low-entropy secret such 201as a passphrase, it is critical that a KDF designed for this purpose 202be used, such as scrypt, PBKDF2, or Argon2. 203 204Key derivation function 205----------------------- 206 207With one exception, fscrypt never uses the master key(s) for 208encryption directly. Instead, they are only used as input to a KDF 209(Key Derivation Function) to derive the actual keys. 210 211The KDF used for a particular master key differs depending on whether 212the key is used for v1 encryption policies or for v2 encryption 213policies. Users **must not** use the same key for both v1 and v2 214encryption policies. (No real-world attack is currently known on this 215specific case of key reuse, but its security cannot be guaranteed 216since the cryptographic proofs and analysis would no longer apply.) 217 218For v1 encryption policies, the KDF only supports deriving per-file 219encryption keys. It works by encrypting the master key with 220AES-128-ECB, using the file's 16-byte nonce as the AES key. The 221resulting ciphertext is used as the derived key. If the ciphertext is 222longer than needed, then it is truncated to the needed length. 223 224For v2 encryption policies, the KDF is HKDF-SHA512. The master key is 225passed as the "input keying material", no salt is used, and a distinct 226"application-specific information string" is used for each distinct 227key to be derived. For example, when a per-file encryption key is 228derived, the application-specific information string is the file's 229nonce prefixed with "fscrypt\\0" and a context byte. Different 230context bytes are used for other types of derived keys. 231 232HKDF-SHA512 is preferred to the original AES-128-ECB based KDF because 233HKDF is more flexible, is nonreversible, and evenly distributes 234entropy from the master key. HKDF is also standardized and widely 235used by other software, whereas the AES-128-ECB based KDF is ad-hoc. 236 237Per-file keys 238------------- 239 240Since each master key can protect many files, it is necessary to 241"tweak" the encryption of each file so that the same plaintext in two 242files doesn't map to the same ciphertext, or vice versa. In most 243cases, fscrypt does this by deriving per-file keys. When a new 244encrypted inode (regular file, directory, or symlink) is created, 245fscrypt randomly generates a 16-byte nonce and stores it in the 246inode's encryption xattr. Then, it uses a KDF (as described in `Key 247derivation function`_) to derive the file's key from the master key 248and nonce. 249 250Key derivation was chosen over key wrapping because wrapped keys would 251require larger xattrs which would be less likely to fit in-line in the 252filesystem's inode table, and there didn't appear to be any 253significant advantages to key wrapping. In particular, currently 254there is no requirement to support unlocking a file with multiple 255alternative master keys or to support rotating master keys. Instead, 256the master keys may be wrapped in userspace, e.g. as is done by the 257`fscrypt <https://github.com/google/fscrypt>`_ tool. 258 259Including the inode number in the IVs was considered. However, it was 260rejected as it would have prevented ext4 filesystems from being 261resized, and by itself still wouldn't have been sufficient to prevent 262the same key from being directly reused for both XTS and CTS-CBC. 263 264DIRECT_KEY and per-mode keys 265---------------------------- 266 267The Adiantum encryption mode (see `Encryption modes and usage`_) is 268suitable for both contents and filenames encryption, and it accepts 269long IVs --- long enough to hold both an 8-byte logical block number 270and a 16-byte per-file nonce. Also, the overhead of each Adiantum key 271is greater than that of an AES-256-XTS key. 272 273Therefore, to improve performance and save memory, for Adiantum a 274"direct key" configuration is supported. When the user has enabled 275this by setting FSCRYPT_POLICY_FLAG_DIRECT_KEY in the fscrypt policy, 276per-file keys are not used. Instead, whenever any data (contents or 277filenames) is encrypted, the file's 16-byte nonce is included in the 278IV. Moreover: 279 280- For v1 encryption policies, the encryption is done directly with the 281 master key. Because of this, users **must not** use the same master 282 key for any other purpose, even for other v1 policies. 283 284- For v2 encryption policies, the encryption is done with a per-mode 285 key derived using the KDF. Users may use the same master key for 286 other v2 encryption policies. 287 288Key identifiers 289--------------- 290 291For master keys used for v2 encryption policies, a unique 16-byte "key 292identifier" is also derived using the KDF. This value is stored in 293the clear, since it is needed to reliably identify the key itself. 294 295Encryption modes and usage 296========================== 297 298fscrypt allows one encryption mode to be specified for file contents 299and one encryption mode to be specified for filenames. Different 300directory trees are permitted to use different encryption modes. 301Currently, the following pairs of encryption modes are supported: 302 303- AES-256-XTS for contents and AES-256-CTS-CBC for filenames 304- AES-128-CBC for contents and AES-128-CTS-CBC for filenames 305- Adiantum for both contents and filenames 306 307If unsure, you should use the (AES-256-XTS, AES-256-CTS-CBC) pair. 308 309AES-128-CBC was added only for low-powered embedded devices with 310crypto accelerators such as CAAM or CESA that do not support XTS. To 311use AES-128-CBC, CONFIG_CRYPTO_SHA256 (or another SHA-256 312implementation) must be enabled so that ESSIV can be used. 313 314Adiantum is a (primarily) stream cipher-based mode that is fast even 315on CPUs without dedicated crypto instructions. It's also a true 316wide-block mode, unlike XTS. It can also eliminate the need to derive 317per-file keys. However, it depends on the security of two primitives, 318XChaCha12 and AES-256, rather than just one. See the paper 319"Adiantum: length-preserving encryption for entry-level processors" 320(https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/720.pdf) for more details. To use 321Adiantum, CONFIG_CRYPTO_ADIANTUM must be enabled. Also, fast 322implementations of ChaCha and NHPoly1305 should be enabled, e.g. 323CONFIG_CRYPTO_CHACHA20_NEON and CONFIG_CRYPTO_NHPOLY1305_NEON for ARM. 324 325New encryption modes can be added relatively easily, without changes 326to individual filesystems. However, authenticated encryption (AE) 327modes are not currently supported because of the difficulty of dealing 328with ciphertext expansion. 329 330Contents encryption 331------------------- 332 333For file contents, each filesystem block is encrypted independently. 334Currently, only the case where the filesystem block size is equal to 335the system's page size (usually 4096 bytes) is supported. 336 337Each block's IV is set to the logical block number within the file as 338a little endian number, except that: 339 340- With CBC mode encryption, ESSIV is also used. Specifically, each IV 341 is encrypted with AES-256 where the AES-256 key is the SHA-256 hash 342 of the file's data encryption key. 343 344- In the "direct key" configuration (FSCRYPT_POLICY_FLAG_DIRECT_KEY 345 set in the fscrypt_policy), the file's nonce is also appended to the 346 IV. Currently this is only allowed with the Adiantum encryption 347 mode. 348 349Filenames encryption 350-------------------- 351 352For filenames, each full filename is encrypted at once. Because of 353the requirements to retain support for efficient directory lookups and 354filenames of up to 255 bytes, the same IV is used for every filename 355in a directory. 356 357However, each encrypted directory still uses a unique key; or 358alternatively (for the "direct key" configuration) has the file's 359nonce included in the IVs. Thus, IV reuse is limited to within a 360single directory. 361 362With CTS-CBC, the IV reuse means that when the plaintext filenames 363share a common prefix at least as long as the cipher block size (16 364bytes for AES), the corresponding encrypted filenames will also share 365a common prefix. This is undesirable. Adiantum does not have this 366weakness, as it is a wide-block encryption mode. 367 368All supported filenames encryption modes accept any plaintext length 369>= 16 bytes; cipher block alignment is not required. However, 370filenames shorter than 16 bytes are NUL-padded to 16 bytes before 371being encrypted. In addition, to reduce leakage of filename lengths 372via their ciphertexts, all filenames are NUL-padded to the next 4, 8, 37316, or 32-byte boundary (configurable). 32 is recommended since this 374provides the best confidentiality, at the cost of making directory 375entries consume slightly more space. Note that since NUL (``\0``) is 376not otherwise a valid character in filenames, the padding will never 377produce duplicate plaintexts. 378 379Symbolic link targets are considered a type of filename and are 380encrypted in the same way as filenames in directory entries, except 381that IV reuse is not a problem as each symlink has its own inode. 382 383User API 384======== 385 386Setting an encryption policy 387---------------------------- 388 389FS_IOC_SET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY 390~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 391 392The FS_IOC_SET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY ioctl sets an encryption policy on an 393empty directory or verifies that a directory or regular file already 394has the specified encryption policy. It takes in a pointer to a 395:c:type:`struct fscrypt_policy_v1` or a :c:type:`struct 396fscrypt_policy_v2`, defined as follows:: 397 398 #define FSCRYPT_POLICY_V1 0 399 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_DESCRIPTOR_SIZE 8 400 struct fscrypt_policy_v1 { 401 __u8 version; 402 __u8 contents_encryption_mode; 403 __u8 filenames_encryption_mode; 404 __u8 flags; 405 __u8 master_key_descriptor[FSCRYPT_KEY_DESCRIPTOR_SIZE]; 406 }; 407 #define fscrypt_policy fscrypt_policy_v1 408 409 #define FSCRYPT_POLICY_V2 2 410 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_IDENTIFIER_SIZE 16 411 struct fscrypt_policy_v2 { 412 __u8 version; 413 __u8 contents_encryption_mode; 414 __u8 filenames_encryption_mode; 415 __u8 flags; 416 __u8 __reserved[4]; 417 __u8 master_key_identifier[FSCRYPT_KEY_IDENTIFIER_SIZE]; 418 }; 419 420This structure must be initialized as follows: 421 422- ``version`` must be FSCRYPT_POLICY_V1 (0) if the struct is 423 :c:type:`fscrypt_policy_v1` or FSCRYPT_POLICY_V2 (2) if the struct 424 is :c:type:`fscrypt_policy_v2`. (Note: we refer to the original 425 policy version as "v1", though its version code is really 0.) For 426 new encrypted directories, use v2 policies. 427 428- ``contents_encryption_mode`` and ``filenames_encryption_mode`` must 429 be set to constants from ``<linux/fscrypt.h>`` which identify the 430 encryption modes to use. If unsure, use FSCRYPT_MODE_AES_256_XTS 431 (1) for ``contents_encryption_mode`` and FSCRYPT_MODE_AES_256_CTS 432 (4) for ``filenames_encryption_mode``. 433 434- ``flags`` must contain a value from ``<linux/fscrypt.h>`` which 435 identifies the amount of NUL-padding to use when encrypting 436 filenames. If unsure, use FSCRYPT_POLICY_FLAGS_PAD_32 (0x3). 437 Additionally, if the encryption modes are both 438 FSCRYPT_MODE_ADIANTUM, this can contain 439 FSCRYPT_POLICY_FLAG_DIRECT_KEY; see `DIRECT_KEY and per-mode keys`_. 440 441- For v2 encryption policies, ``__reserved`` must be zeroed. 442 443- For v1 encryption policies, ``master_key_descriptor`` specifies how 444 to find the master key in a keyring; see `Adding keys`_. It is up 445 to userspace to choose a unique ``master_key_descriptor`` for each 446 master key. The e4crypt and fscrypt tools use the first 8 bytes of 447 ``SHA-512(SHA-512(master_key))``, but this particular scheme is not 448 required. Also, the master key need not be in the keyring yet when 449 FS_IOC_SET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY is executed. However, it must be added 450 before any files can be created in the encrypted directory. 451 452 For v2 encryption policies, ``master_key_descriptor`` has been 453 replaced with ``master_key_identifier``, which is longer and cannot 454 be arbitrarily chosen. Instead, the key must first be added using 455 `FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY`_. Then, the ``key_spec.u.identifier`` 456 the kernel returned in the :c:type:`struct fscrypt_add_key_arg` must 457 be used as the ``master_key_identifier`` in the :c:type:`struct 458 fscrypt_policy_v2`. 459 460If the file is not yet encrypted, then FS_IOC_SET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY 461verifies that the file is an empty directory. If so, the specified 462encryption policy is assigned to the directory, turning it into an 463encrypted directory. After that, and after providing the 464corresponding master key as described in `Adding keys`_, all regular 465files, directories (recursively), and symlinks created in the 466directory will be encrypted, inheriting the same encryption policy. 467The filenames in the directory's entries will be encrypted as well. 468 469Alternatively, if the file is already encrypted, then 470FS_IOC_SET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY validates that the specified encryption 471policy exactly matches the actual one. If they match, then the ioctl 472returns 0. Otherwise, it fails with EEXIST. This works on both 473regular files and directories, including nonempty directories. 474 475When a v2 encryption policy is assigned to a directory, it is also 476required that either the specified key has been added by the current 477user or that the caller has CAP_FOWNER in the initial user namespace. 478(This is needed to prevent a user from encrypting their data with 479another user's key.) The key must remain added while 480FS_IOC_SET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY is executing. However, if the new 481encrypted directory does not need to be accessed immediately, then the 482key can be removed right away afterwards. 483 484Note that the ext4 filesystem does not allow the root directory to be 485encrypted, even if it is empty. Users who want to encrypt an entire 486filesystem with one key should consider using dm-crypt instead. 487 488FS_IOC_SET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY can fail with the following errors: 489 490- ``EACCES``: the file is not owned by the process's uid, nor does the 491 process have the CAP_FOWNER capability in a namespace with the file 492 owner's uid mapped 493- ``EEXIST``: the file is already encrypted with an encryption policy 494 different from the one specified 495- ``EINVAL``: an invalid encryption policy was specified (invalid 496 version, mode(s), or flags; or reserved bits were set) 497- ``ENOKEY``: a v2 encryption policy was specified, but the key with 498 the specified ``master_key_identifier`` has not been added, nor does 499 the process have the CAP_FOWNER capability in the initial user 500 namespace 501- ``ENOTDIR``: the file is unencrypted and is a regular file, not a 502 directory 503- ``ENOTEMPTY``: the file is unencrypted and is a nonempty directory 504- ``ENOTTY``: this type of filesystem does not implement encryption 505- ``EOPNOTSUPP``: the kernel was not configured with encryption 506 support for filesystems, or the filesystem superblock has not 507 had encryption enabled on it. (For example, to use encryption on an 508 ext4 filesystem, CONFIG_FS_ENCRYPTION must be enabled in the 509 kernel config, and the superblock must have had the "encrypt" 510 feature flag enabled using ``tune2fs -O encrypt`` or ``mkfs.ext4 -O 511 encrypt``.) 512- ``EPERM``: this directory may not be encrypted, e.g. because it is 513 the root directory of an ext4 filesystem 514- ``EROFS``: the filesystem is readonly 515 516Getting an encryption policy 517---------------------------- 518 519Two ioctls are available to get a file's encryption policy: 520 521- `FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY_EX`_ 522- `FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY`_ 523 524The extended (_EX) version of the ioctl is more general and is 525recommended to use when possible. However, on older kernels only the 526original ioctl is available. Applications should try the extended 527version, and if it fails with ENOTTY fall back to the original 528version. 529 530FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY_EX 531~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 532 533The FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY_EX ioctl retrieves the encryption 534policy, if any, for a directory or regular file. No additional 535permissions are required beyond the ability to open the file. It 536takes in a pointer to a :c:type:`struct fscrypt_get_policy_ex_arg`, 537defined as follows:: 538 539 struct fscrypt_get_policy_ex_arg { 540 __u64 policy_size; /* input/output */ 541 union { 542 __u8 version; 543 struct fscrypt_policy_v1 v1; 544 struct fscrypt_policy_v2 v2; 545 } policy; /* output */ 546 }; 547 548The caller must initialize ``policy_size`` to the size available for 549the policy struct, i.e. ``sizeof(arg.policy)``. 550 551On success, the policy struct is returned in ``policy``, and its 552actual size is returned in ``policy_size``. ``policy.version`` should 553be checked to determine the version of policy returned. Note that the 554version code for the "v1" policy is actually 0 (FSCRYPT_POLICY_V1). 555 556FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY_EX can fail with the following errors: 557 558- ``EINVAL``: the file is encrypted, but it uses an unrecognized 559 encryption policy version 560- ``ENODATA``: the file is not encrypted 561- ``ENOTTY``: this type of filesystem does not implement encryption, 562 or this kernel is too old to support FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY_EX 563 (try FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY instead) 564- ``EOPNOTSUPP``: the kernel was not configured with encryption 565 support for this filesystem, or the filesystem superblock has not 566 had encryption enabled on it 567- ``EOVERFLOW``: the file is encrypted and uses a recognized 568 encryption policy version, but the policy struct does not fit into 569 the provided buffer 570 571Note: if you only need to know whether a file is encrypted or not, on 572most filesystems it is also possible to use the FS_IOC_GETFLAGS ioctl 573and check for FS_ENCRYPT_FL, or to use the statx() system call and 574check for STATX_ATTR_ENCRYPTED in stx_attributes. 575 576FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY 577~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 578 579The FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY ioctl can also retrieve the 580encryption policy, if any, for a directory or regular file. However, 581unlike `FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY_EX`_, 582FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY only supports the original policy 583version. It takes in a pointer directly to a :c:type:`struct 584fscrypt_policy_v1` rather than a :c:type:`struct 585fscrypt_get_policy_ex_arg`. 586 587The error codes for FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY are the same as those 588for FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY_EX, except that 589FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_POLICY also returns ``EINVAL`` if the file is 590encrypted using a newer encryption policy version. 591 592Getting the per-filesystem salt 593------------------------------- 594 595Some filesystems, such as ext4 and F2FS, also support the deprecated 596ioctl FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_PWSALT. This ioctl retrieves a randomly 597generated 16-byte value stored in the filesystem superblock. This 598value is intended to used as a salt when deriving an encryption key 599from a passphrase or other low-entropy user credential. 600 601FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_PWSALT is deprecated. Instead, prefer to 602generate and manage any needed salt(s) in userspace. 603 604Adding keys 605----------- 606 607FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY 608~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 609 610The FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY ioctl adds a master encryption key to 611the filesystem, making all files on the filesystem which were 612encrypted using that key appear "unlocked", i.e. in plaintext form. 613It can be executed on any file or directory on the target filesystem, 614but using the filesystem's root directory is recommended. It takes in 615a pointer to a :c:type:`struct fscrypt_add_key_arg`, defined as 616follows:: 617 618 struct fscrypt_add_key_arg { 619 struct fscrypt_key_specifier key_spec; 620 __u32 raw_size; 621 __u32 __reserved[9]; 622 __u8 raw[]; 623 }; 624 625 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR 1 626 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_IDENTIFIER 2 627 628 struct fscrypt_key_specifier { 629 __u32 type; /* one of FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_* */ 630 __u32 __reserved; 631 union { 632 __u8 __reserved[32]; /* reserve some extra space */ 633 __u8 descriptor[FSCRYPT_KEY_DESCRIPTOR_SIZE]; 634 __u8 identifier[FSCRYPT_KEY_IDENTIFIER_SIZE]; 635 } u; 636 }; 637 638:c:type:`struct fscrypt_add_key_arg` must be zeroed, then initialized 639as follows: 640 641- If the key is being added for use by v1 encryption policies, then 642 ``key_spec.type`` must contain FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR, and 643 ``key_spec.u.descriptor`` must contain the descriptor of the key 644 being added, corresponding to the value in the 645 ``master_key_descriptor`` field of :c:type:`struct 646 fscrypt_policy_v1`. To add this type of key, the calling process 647 must have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability in the initial user 648 namespace. 649 650 Alternatively, if the key is being added for use by v2 encryption 651 policies, then ``key_spec.type`` must contain 652 FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_IDENTIFIER, and ``key_spec.u.identifier`` is 653 an *output* field which the kernel fills in with a cryptographic 654 hash of the key. To add this type of key, the calling process does 655 not need any privileges. However, the number of keys that can be 656 added is limited by the user's quota for the keyrings service (see 657 ``Documentation/security/keys/core.rst``). 658 659- ``raw_size`` must be the size of the ``raw`` key provided, in bytes. 660 661- ``raw`` is a variable-length field which must contain the actual 662 key, ``raw_size`` bytes long. 663 664For v2 policy keys, the kernel keeps track of which user (identified 665by effective user ID) added the key, and only allows the key to be 666removed by that user --- or by "root", if they use 667`FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY_ALL_USERS`_. 668 669However, if another user has added the key, it may be desirable to 670prevent that other user from unexpectedly removing it. Therefore, 671FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY may also be used to add a v2 policy key 672*again*, even if it's already added by other user(s). In this case, 673FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY will just install a claim to the key for the 674current user, rather than actually add the key again (but the raw key 675must still be provided, as a proof of knowledge). 676 677FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY returns 0 if either the key or a claim to 678the key was either added or already exists. 679 680FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY can fail with the following errors: 681 682- ``EACCES``: FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR was specified, but the 683 caller does not have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability in the initial 684 user namespace 685- ``EDQUOT``: the key quota for this user would be exceeded by adding 686 the key 687- ``EINVAL``: invalid key size or key specifier type, or reserved bits 688 were set 689- ``ENOTTY``: this type of filesystem does not implement encryption 690- ``EOPNOTSUPP``: the kernel was not configured with encryption 691 support for this filesystem, or the filesystem superblock has not 692 had encryption enabled on it 693 694Legacy method 695~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 696 697For v1 encryption policies, a master encryption key can also be 698provided by adding it to a process-subscribed keyring, e.g. to a 699session keyring, or to a user keyring if the user keyring is linked 700into the session keyring. 701 702This method is deprecated (and not supported for v2 encryption 703policies) for several reasons. First, it cannot be used in 704combination with FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY (see `Removing keys`_), 705so for removing a key a workaround such as keyctl_unlink() in 706combination with ``sync; echo 2 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches`` would 707have to be used. Second, it doesn't match the fact that the 708locked/unlocked status of encrypted files (i.e. whether they appear to 709be in plaintext form or in ciphertext form) is global. This mismatch 710has caused much confusion as well as real problems when processes 711running under different UIDs, such as a ``sudo`` command, need to 712access encrypted files. 713 714Nevertheless, to add a key to one of the process-subscribed keyrings, 715the add_key() system call can be used (see: 716``Documentation/security/keys/core.rst``). The key type must be 717"logon"; keys of this type are kept in kernel memory and cannot be 718read back by userspace. The key description must be "fscrypt:" 719followed by the 16-character lower case hex representation of the 720``master_key_descriptor`` that was set in the encryption policy. The 721key payload must conform to the following structure:: 722 723 #define FSCRYPT_MAX_KEY_SIZE 64 724 725 struct fscrypt_key { 726 __u32 mode; 727 __u8 raw[FSCRYPT_MAX_KEY_SIZE]; 728 __u32 size; 729 }; 730 731``mode`` is ignored; just set it to 0. The actual key is provided in 732``raw`` with ``size`` indicating its size in bytes. That is, the 733bytes ``raw[0..size-1]`` (inclusive) are the actual key. 734 735The key description prefix "fscrypt:" may alternatively be replaced 736with a filesystem-specific prefix such as "ext4:". However, the 737filesystem-specific prefixes are deprecated and should not be used in 738new programs. 739 740Removing keys 741------------- 742 743Two ioctls are available for removing a key that was added by 744`FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY`_: 745 746- `FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY`_ 747- `FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY_ALL_USERS`_ 748 749These two ioctls differ only in cases where v2 policy keys are added 750or removed by non-root users. 751 752These ioctls don't work on keys that were added via the legacy 753process-subscribed keyrings mechanism. 754 755Before using these ioctls, read the `Kernel memory compromise`_ 756section for a discussion of the security goals and limitations of 757these ioctls. 758 759FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY 760~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 761 762The FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY ioctl removes a claim to a master 763encryption key from the filesystem, and possibly removes the key 764itself. It can be executed on any file or directory on the target 765filesystem, but using the filesystem's root directory is recommended. 766It takes in a pointer to a :c:type:`struct fscrypt_remove_key_arg`, 767defined as follows:: 768 769 struct fscrypt_remove_key_arg { 770 struct fscrypt_key_specifier key_spec; 771 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_REMOVAL_STATUS_FLAG_FILES_BUSY 0x00000001 772 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_REMOVAL_STATUS_FLAG_OTHER_USERS 0x00000002 773 __u32 removal_status_flags; /* output */ 774 __u32 __reserved[5]; 775 }; 776 777This structure must be zeroed, then initialized as follows: 778 779- The key to remove is specified by ``key_spec``: 780 781 - To remove a key used by v1 encryption policies, set 782 ``key_spec.type`` to FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR and fill 783 in ``key_spec.u.descriptor``. To remove this type of key, the 784 calling process must have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability in the 785 initial user namespace. 786 787 - To remove a key used by v2 encryption policies, set 788 ``key_spec.type`` to FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_IDENTIFIER and fill 789 in ``key_spec.u.identifier``. 790 791For v2 policy keys, this ioctl is usable by non-root users. However, 792to make this possible, it actually just removes the current user's 793claim to the key, undoing a single call to FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY. 794Only after all claims are removed is the key really removed. 795 796For example, if FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY was called with uid 1000, 797then the key will be "claimed" by uid 1000, and 798FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY will only succeed as uid 1000. Or, if 799both uids 1000 and 2000 added the key, then for each uid 800FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY will only remove their own claim. Only 801once *both* are removed is the key really removed. (Think of it like 802unlinking a file that may have hard links.) 803 804If FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY really removes the key, it will also 805try to "lock" all files that had been unlocked with the key. It won't 806lock files that are still in-use, so this ioctl is expected to be used 807in cooperation with userspace ensuring that none of the files are 808still open. However, if necessary, this ioctl can be executed again 809later to retry locking any remaining files. 810 811FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY returns 0 if either the key was removed 812(but may still have files remaining to be locked), the user's claim to 813the key was removed, or the key was already removed but had files 814remaining to be the locked so the ioctl retried locking them. In any 815of these cases, ``removal_status_flags`` is filled in with the 816following informational status flags: 817 818- ``FSCRYPT_KEY_REMOVAL_STATUS_FLAG_FILES_BUSY``: set if some file(s) 819 are still in-use. Not guaranteed to be set in the case where only 820 the user's claim to the key was removed. 821- ``FSCRYPT_KEY_REMOVAL_STATUS_FLAG_OTHER_USERS``: set if only the 822 user's claim to the key was removed, not the key itself 823 824FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY can fail with the following errors: 825 826- ``EACCES``: The FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR key specifier type 827 was specified, but the caller does not have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN 828 capability in the initial user namespace 829- ``EINVAL``: invalid key specifier type, or reserved bits were set 830- ``ENOKEY``: the key object was not found at all, i.e. it was never 831 added in the first place or was already fully removed including all 832 files locked; or, the user does not have a claim to the key (but 833 someone else does). 834- ``ENOTTY``: this type of filesystem does not implement encryption 835- ``EOPNOTSUPP``: the kernel was not configured with encryption 836 support for this filesystem, or the filesystem superblock has not 837 had encryption enabled on it 838 839FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY_ALL_USERS 840~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 841 842FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY_ALL_USERS is exactly the same as 843`FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY`_, except that for v2 policy keys, the 844ALL_USERS version of the ioctl will remove all users' claims to the 845key, not just the current user's. I.e., the key itself will always be 846removed, no matter how many users have added it. This difference is 847only meaningful if non-root users are adding and removing keys. 848 849Because of this, FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY_ALL_USERS also requires 850"root", namely the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability in the initial user 851namespace. Otherwise it will fail with EACCES. 852 853Getting key status 854------------------ 855 856FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_KEY_STATUS 857~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 858 859The FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_KEY_STATUS ioctl retrieves the status of a 860master encryption key. It can be executed on any file or directory on 861the target filesystem, but using the filesystem's root directory is 862recommended. It takes in a pointer to a :c:type:`struct 863fscrypt_get_key_status_arg`, defined as follows:: 864 865 struct fscrypt_get_key_status_arg { 866 /* input */ 867 struct fscrypt_key_specifier key_spec; 868 __u32 __reserved[6]; 869 870 /* output */ 871 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_STATUS_ABSENT 1 872 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_STATUS_PRESENT 2 873 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_STATUS_INCOMPLETELY_REMOVED 3 874 __u32 status; 875 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_STATUS_FLAG_ADDED_BY_SELF 0x00000001 876 __u32 status_flags; 877 __u32 user_count; 878 __u32 __out_reserved[13]; 879 }; 880 881The caller must zero all input fields, then fill in ``key_spec``: 882 883 - To get the status of a key for v1 encryption policies, set 884 ``key_spec.type`` to FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR and fill 885 in ``key_spec.u.descriptor``. 886 887 - To get the status of a key for v2 encryption policies, set 888 ``key_spec.type`` to FSCRYPT_KEY_SPEC_TYPE_IDENTIFIER and fill 889 in ``key_spec.u.identifier``. 890 891On success, 0 is returned and the kernel fills in the output fields: 892 893- ``status`` indicates whether the key is absent, present, or 894 incompletely removed. Incompletely removed means that the master 895 secret has been removed, but some files are still in use; i.e., 896 `FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY`_ returned 0 but set the informational 897 status flag FSCRYPT_KEY_REMOVAL_STATUS_FLAG_FILES_BUSY. 898 899- ``status_flags`` can contain the following flags: 900 901 - ``FSCRYPT_KEY_STATUS_FLAG_ADDED_BY_SELF`` indicates that the key 902 has added by the current user. This is only set for keys 903 identified by ``identifier`` rather than by ``descriptor``. 904 905- ``user_count`` specifies the number of users who have added the key. 906 This is only set for keys identified by ``identifier`` rather than 907 by ``descriptor``. 908 909FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_KEY_STATUS can fail with the following errors: 910 911- ``EINVAL``: invalid key specifier type, or reserved bits were set 912- ``ENOTTY``: this type of filesystem does not implement encryption 913- ``EOPNOTSUPP``: the kernel was not configured with encryption 914 support for this filesystem, or the filesystem superblock has not 915 had encryption enabled on it 916 917Among other use cases, FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_KEY_STATUS can be useful 918for determining whether the key for a given encrypted directory needs 919to be added before prompting the user for the passphrase needed to 920derive the key. 921 922FS_IOC_GET_ENCRYPTION_KEY_STATUS can only get the status of keys in 923the filesystem-level keyring, i.e. the keyring managed by 924`FS_IOC_ADD_ENCRYPTION_KEY`_ and `FS_IOC_REMOVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY`_. It 925cannot get the status of a key that has only been added for use by v1 926encryption policies using the legacy mechanism involving 927process-subscribed keyrings. 928 929Access semantics 930================ 931 932With the key 933------------ 934 935With the encryption key, encrypted regular files, directories, and 936symlinks behave very similarly to their unencrypted counterparts --- 937after all, the encryption is intended to be transparent. However, 938astute users may notice some differences in behavior: 939 940- Unencrypted files, or files encrypted with a different encryption 941 policy (i.e. different key, modes, or flags), cannot be renamed or 942 linked into an encrypted directory; see `Encryption policy 943 enforcement`_. Attempts to do so will fail with EXDEV. However, 944 encrypted files can be renamed within an encrypted directory, or 945 into an unencrypted directory. 946 947 Note: "moving" an unencrypted file into an encrypted directory, e.g. 948 with the `mv` program, is implemented in userspace by a copy 949 followed by a delete. Be aware that the original unencrypted data 950 may remain recoverable from free space on the disk; prefer to keep 951 all files encrypted from the very beginning. The `shred` program 952 may be used to overwrite the source files but isn't guaranteed to be 953 effective on all filesystems and storage devices. 954 955- Direct I/O is not supported on encrypted files. Attempts to use 956 direct I/O on such files will fall back to buffered I/O. 957 958- The fallocate operations FALLOC_FL_COLLAPSE_RANGE, 959 FALLOC_FL_INSERT_RANGE, and FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE are not supported 960 on encrypted files and will fail with EOPNOTSUPP. 961 962- Online defragmentation of encrypted files is not supported. The 963 EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT and F2FS_IOC_MOVE_RANGE ioctls will fail with 964 EOPNOTSUPP. 965 966- The ext4 filesystem does not support data journaling with encrypted 967 regular files. It will fall back to ordered data mode instead. 968 969- DAX (Direct Access) is not supported on encrypted files. 970 971- The st_size of an encrypted symlink will not necessarily give the 972 length of the symlink target as required by POSIX. It will actually 973 give the length of the ciphertext, which will be slightly longer 974 than the plaintext due to NUL-padding and an extra 2-byte overhead. 975 976- The maximum length of an encrypted symlink is 2 bytes shorter than 977 the maximum length of an unencrypted symlink. For example, on an 978 EXT4 filesystem with a 4K block size, unencrypted symlinks can be up 979 to 4095 bytes long, while encrypted symlinks can only be up to 4093 980 bytes long (both lengths excluding the terminating null). 981 982Note that mmap *is* supported. This is possible because the pagecache 983for an encrypted file contains the plaintext, not the ciphertext. 984 985Without the key 986--------------- 987 988Some filesystem operations may be performed on encrypted regular 989files, directories, and symlinks even before their encryption key has 990been added, or after their encryption key has been removed: 991 992- File metadata may be read, e.g. using stat(). 993 994- Directories may be listed, in which case the filenames will be 995 listed in an encoded form derived from their ciphertext. The 996 current encoding algorithm is described in `Filename hashing and 997 encoding`_. The algorithm is subject to change, but it is 998 guaranteed that the presented filenames will be no longer than 999 NAME_MAX bytes, will not contain the ``/`` or ``\0`` characters, and 1000 will uniquely identify directory entries. 1001 1002 The ``.`` and ``..`` directory entries are special. They are always 1003 present and are not encrypted or encoded. 1004 1005- Files may be deleted. That is, nondirectory files may be deleted 1006 with unlink() as usual, and empty directories may be deleted with 1007 rmdir() as usual. Therefore, ``rm`` and ``rm -r`` will work as 1008 expected. 1009 1010- Symlink targets may be read and followed, but they will be presented 1011 in encrypted form, similar to filenames in directories. Hence, they 1012 are unlikely to point to anywhere useful. 1013 1014Without the key, regular files cannot be opened or truncated. 1015Attempts to do so will fail with ENOKEY. This implies that any 1016regular file operations that require a file descriptor, such as 1017read(), write(), mmap(), fallocate(), and ioctl(), are also forbidden. 1018 1019Also without the key, files of any type (including directories) cannot 1020be created or linked into an encrypted directory, nor can a name in an 1021encrypted directory be the source or target of a rename, nor can an 1022O_TMPFILE temporary file be created in an encrypted directory. All 1023such operations will fail with ENOKEY. 1024 1025It is not currently possible to backup and restore encrypted files 1026without the encryption key. This would require special APIs which 1027have not yet been implemented. 1028 1029Encryption policy enforcement 1030============================= 1031 1032After an encryption policy has been set on a directory, all regular 1033files, directories, and symbolic links created in that directory 1034(recursively) will inherit that encryption policy. Special files --- 1035that is, named pipes, device nodes, and UNIX domain sockets --- will 1036not be encrypted. 1037 1038Except for those special files, it is forbidden to have unencrypted 1039files, or files encrypted with a different encryption policy, in an 1040encrypted directory tree. Attempts to link or rename such a file into 1041an encrypted directory will fail with EXDEV. This is also enforced 1042during ->lookup() to provide limited protection against offline 1043attacks that try to disable or downgrade encryption in known locations 1044where applications may later write sensitive data. It is recommended 1045that systems implementing a form of "verified boot" take advantage of 1046this by validating all top-level encryption policies prior to access. 1047 1048Implementation details 1049====================== 1050 1051Encryption context 1052------------------ 1053 1054An encryption policy is represented on-disk by a :c:type:`struct 1055fscrypt_context_v1` or a :c:type:`struct fscrypt_context_v2`. It is 1056up to individual filesystems to decide where to store it, but normally 1057it would be stored in a hidden extended attribute. It should *not* be 1058exposed by the xattr-related system calls such as getxattr() and 1059setxattr() because of the special semantics of the encryption xattr. 1060(In particular, there would be much confusion if an encryption policy 1061were to be added to or removed from anything other than an empty 1062directory.) These structs are defined as follows:: 1063 1064 #define FS_KEY_DERIVATION_NONCE_SIZE 16 1065 1066 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_DESCRIPTOR_SIZE 8 1067 struct fscrypt_context_v1 { 1068 u8 version; 1069 u8 contents_encryption_mode; 1070 u8 filenames_encryption_mode; 1071 u8 flags; 1072 u8 master_key_descriptor[FSCRYPT_KEY_DESCRIPTOR_SIZE]; 1073 u8 nonce[FS_KEY_DERIVATION_NONCE_SIZE]; 1074 }; 1075 1076 #define FSCRYPT_KEY_IDENTIFIER_SIZE 16 1077 struct fscrypt_context_v2 { 1078 u8 version; 1079 u8 contents_encryption_mode; 1080 u8 filenames_encryption_mode; 1081 u8 flags; 1082 u8 __reserved[4]; 1083 u8 master_key_identifier[FSCRYPT_KEY_IDENTIFIER_SIZE]; 1084 u8 nonce[FS_KEY_DERIVATION_NONCE_SIZE]; 1085 }; 1086 1087The context structs contain the same information as the corresponding 1088policy structs (see `Setting an encryption policy`_), except that the 1089context structs also contain a nonce. The nonce is randomly generated 1090by the kernel and is used as KDF input or as a tweak to cause 1091different files to be encrypted differently; see `Per-file keys`_ and 1092`DIRECT_KEY and per-mode keys`_. 1093 1094Data path changes 1095----------------- 1096 1097For the read path (->readpage()) of regular files, filesystems can 1098read the ciphertext into the page cache and decrypt it in-place. The 1099page lock must be held until decryption has finished, to prevent the 1100page from becoming visible to userspace prematurely. 1101 1102For the write path (->writepage()) of regular files, filesystems 1103cannot encrypt data in-place in the page cache, since the cached 1104plaintext must be preserved. Instead, filesystems must encrypt into a 1105temporary buffer or "bounce page", then write out the temporary 1106buffer. Some filesystems, such as UBIFS, already use temporary 1107buffers regardless of encryption. Other filesystems, such as ext4 and 1108F2FS, have to allocate bounce pages specially for encryption. 1109 1110Filename hashing and encoding 1111----------------------------- 1112 1113Modern filesystems accelerate directory lookups by using indexed 1114directories. An indexed directory is organized as a tree keyed by 1115filename hashes. When a ->lookup() is requested, the filesystem 1116normally hashes the filename being looked up so that it can quickly 1117find the corresponding directory entry, if any. 1118 1119With encryption, lookups must be supported and efficient both with and 1120without the encryption key. Clearly, it would not work to hash the 1121plaintext filenames, since the plaintext filenames are unavailable 1122without the key. (Hashing the plaintext filenames would also make it 1123impossible for the filesystem's fsck tool to optimize encrypted 1124directories.) Instead, filesystems hash the ciphertext filenames, 1125i.e. the bytes actually stored on-disk in the directory entries. When 1126asked to do a ->lookup() with the key, the filesystem just encrypts 1127the user-supplied name to get the ciphertext. 1128 1129Lookups without the key are more complicated. The raw ciphertext may 1130contain the ``\0`` and ``/`` characters, which are illegal in 1131filenames. Therefore, readdir() must base64-encode the ciphertext for 1132presentation. For most filenames, this works fine; on ->lookup(), the 1133filesystem just base64-decodes the user-supplied name to get back to 1134the raw ciphertext. 1135 1136However, for very long filenames, base64 encoding would cause the 1137filename length to exceed NAME_MAX. To prevent this, readdir() 1138actually presents long filenames in an abbreviated form which encodes 1139a strong "hash" of the ciphertext filename, along with the optional 1140filesystem-specific hash(es) needed for directory lookups. This 1141allows the filesystem to still, with a high degree of confidence, map 1142the filename given in ->lookup() back to a particular directory entry 1143that was previously listed by readdir(). See :c:type:`struct 1144fscrypt_digested_name` in the source for more details. 1145 1146Note that the precise way that filenames are presented to userspace 1147without the key is subject to change in the future. It is only meant 1148as a way to temporarily present valid filenames so that commands like 1149``rm -r`` work as expected on encrypted directories. 1150 1151Tests 1152===== 1153 1154To test fscrypt, use xfstests, which is Linux's de facto standard 1155filesystem test suite. First, run all the tests in the "encrypt" 1156group on the relevant filesystem(s). For example, to test ext4 and 1157f2fs encryption using `kvm-xfstests 1158<https://github.com/tytso/xfstests-bld/blob/master/Documentation/kvm-quickstart.md>`_:: 1159 1160 kvm-xfstests -c ext4,f2fs -g encrypt 1161 1162UBIFS encryption can also be tested this way, but it should be done in 1163a separate command, and it takes some time for kvm-xfstests to set up 1164emulated UBI volumes:: 1165 1166 kvm-xfstests -c ubifs -g encrypt 1167 1168No tests should fail. However, tests that use non-default encryption 1169modes (e.g. generic/549 and generic/550) will be skipped if the needed 1170algorithms were not built into the kernel's crypto API. Also, tests 1171that access the raw block device (e.g. generic/399, generic/548, 1172generic/549, generic/550) will be skipped on UBIFS. 1173 1174Besides running the "encrypt" group tests, for ext4 and f2fs it's also 1175possible to run most xfstests with the "test_dummy_encryption" mount 1176option. This option causes all new files to be automatically 1177encrypted with a dummy key, without having to make any API calls. 1178This tests the encrypted I/O paths more thoroughly. To do this with 1179kvm-xfstests, use the "encrypt" filesystem configuration:: 1180 1181 kvm-xfstests -c ext4/encrypt,f2fs/encrypt -g auto 1182 1183Because this runs many more tests than "-g encrypt" does, it takes 1184much longer to run; so also consider using `gce-xfstests 1185<https://github.com/tytso/xfstests-bld/blob/master/Documentation/gce-xfstests.md>`_ 1186instead of kvm-xfstests:: 1187 1188 gce-xfstests -c ext4/encrypt,f2fs/encrypt -g auto 1189