Open encrypted home partition data

Support & Help Requests
1

Hi all,
I start with mate desktop 16.04 LTS with an home encrypted partition 2 years ago
Now I moved to a new 18.04 LTS with fresh install formatting the root partition without formatting the home partition from live CD.
When the install process finish now I’m unable to log with my user and psw.
Accessing my old home partition with live CD I’m unable to open it in CAJA because formatting the root partition delete my encryption private file.

Here is the question: how I can copy my old data in my old home to an external partition with only the pass phrase of the encryption in 32 character like 888dgr65hg768jy9lkj…
Hope someone could help me.
Thanks in advance.

2

From the description of your issue, I am assuming that you used custom partitioning during your 16.04 install to install home in a separate partition, and checked the “encrypt my home folder” option.

If this is so, your encrypted home is using ecryptfs, which you can verify by manually examining your home partition which will look empty, but will show a hidden .Private folder which contains encrypted versions of all your home folder files.

Ubuntu 18.04 has removed default support for encrypted home using ecryptfs, opting instead for full / root and swap partition encryption using LUKS/LVM instead.

So at this point you have 2 options:

  1. KEEP 16.04 ECRYPTFS – install ecryptfs-utils, and use ecryptfs-recover-private to recover your password add it to your keyring and continue to use your existing 16.04 encrypted home partition with ecryptfs mounted under 18.04.

  2. MOVE TO 18.04 LUKS/LVM – install ecryptfs-utils, then make a copy of your current encrypted home on an external drive, and use the ecryptfs-utils as above to recover your passphrase and mount the partition using your old password so you can copy the unencrypted home files back to a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 install that is encrypted using the new default 18.04 LUKS/LVM encryption.

Here are some links to explain how to recover your home partition password and manually mount your existing ecryptfs encrypted home:

askubuntu how-do-i-mount-an-encrypted-home-directory-on-another-ubuntu-machine

help.ubuntu.com Live_CD_method_of_opening_a_encrypted_home_directory

3

Thank you very much for the tips.
Kind Regards.
Silvio