How do I decrypt an entire /home drive in Fedora12KDE

[theAdmiral]

Hello, Everyone! Does anyone know how to decrypt an entire /home drive in Fedora12KDE, please? Your help would be appreciated.

theAdmiral

[oz]

Does anyone know how to decrypt an entire /home drive in Fedora12KDE, please?

Welcome to the forums!

You'll probably need to use the correct password or key that was originally used to encrypt the data.

[theAdmiral]

Dear Ozar,

That is a graciously received start. Might you happen to know the next step, please?

Thank you kindly,
theAdmiral

[oz]

Might you happen to know the next step, please?

No, not really... I don't know which encryption software was used to originally encrypt the data, but using TrueCrypt as an example since it is a popular encryption tool, you can go to their website and find detailed documentation for using it:

TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source Disk Encryption - Documentation

Other encrypting tools should have similar documentation available for end users.

[theAdmiral]

The page you referred me to states that *data* can be encrypted and decrypted on the fly. It also states that *everything* can be encrypted on the fly. It does not say that *everything* can be decrypted, on the fly or not on the fly. Thank you for your help though. By the way, my encryption software was Anaconda, it is the installation program for Fedora (12 KDE). I encrypted the drive upon installation. Want to use VMware to install WinVista as a virtual machine, but I think the encryption is stopping it.

[oz]

Ah, now I'm with you and understand better - thanks for the clarification.

I've not run anything that uses the Ananconda installer in about 8 years now and have never done any encryption during installation with it, so I'd better let someone that has done it step in here with some advice for you. Hopefully, removing the encryption will be a simple process.

[DT0X]

Cant imagine the encryption would be stopping you doing this - when you boot the machine does it ask you for a password? If so thats your "unencryption key" that allows the OS disk to be unencrypted and thus the OS to boot.

Once its booted the encryption should be seemless i.e. you wont notice it and it shouldnt stop you creating any type of files (including creating VMs etc).

How are you trying to create the VM? What version of VMWare are you using? What errors do you get? Is SELinux enabled (ouput of 'getenforce' command)?

Cheers

[theAdmiral]

Cant imagine the encryption would be stopping you doing this - when you boot the machine does it ask you for a password?

Yes, when I boot the os asks for an encryption password, then it goes to the login dialog.

How are you trying to create the VM? What version of VMWare are you using?

VMware Player.

What errors do you get?

This OS does not support the hard drive [or the hardware or something like that].

Is SELinux enabled (ouput of 'getenforce' command)?

It is set to permit VMware Player.

Thank you. You continued help is appreciated.
theAdmiral

[DT0X]

Was SELinux enabled when you installed VMWare player?

Did you get any errors when installing VMWare player?

Are you running any other VMs at the moment i.e. do you have a working Linux VM for example or is this your first attempt at creating one on this host?

See this thread on fedoraforums for some possible tips:

forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=234928