Password and Keys (Seahorse)

Support & Help Requests
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#1

My new possession, a secondhand ex gov HP400 desktop is working fine with ubuntu 16.04 LTS mate desktop. The installed, but never even tried windows partition has been shrunk to a suitable size and is unusable. Ubuntu works fine and I am enjoying the mate desktop.

Though I am a really old man, in the past I never encrypted any directories. I found a nice tutorial about the “Seahorse” and decided that at 91 it is time to try the encryption in practice. All worked really swimmingly well until I tried to right click an apparently encrypted file. According to the tutorial, the right click should invoke a password request. Well, nothing happens. Pity.

The following URL points to the tutorial, entitled ENCRYPT FILES AND FOLDERS IN UBUNTU USING SEAHORSE

http://www.webupd8.org/2009/10/encrypt-files-and-folders-in-ubuntu.html

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

OldAl.

PS: I am not averse to using CLI, but I really wish a minimal use of encryption - just to encrypt a file or directory, open it for modification and save it again in encrypted format. I am not asking for much, do I?
Al.

1 Like
#2

Hi @OldAl,

I don’t do it myself but you can start here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FolderEncryption

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FullDiskEncryptionHowto

I hope it helps!. :thumbsup:

#3

Hi OldAl,

I’m a newbie to Linux so I’m not sure about encrypting directories but if you need a simple to use graphical editor to create, edit and save encrypted text files, check out CryptoTE at https://panthema.net/2009/cryptote/

It has a partially static binary for Linux which I suggest you use, rather than adding repositories. Download this file (https://panthema.net/2009/cryptote/win32/CryptoTE-0.5.390-Standalones-1.zip) and extract the Linux binary (the one NOT ending in .exe) and place in your HOME directory’s bin subdirectory, which automatically gets added to your PATH. Then you can either create a menu shortcut using Alacarte or Menulibre, or simply open a terminal and type the name of the file you just extracted to your bin. If the name is rather long, you can rename it to just ‘cryptote’.

This editor allows you to create so-called encrypted ‘containers’ which are nothing but a collection of one or more text files. So for example you can create a container file for your passwords, in which you can have one or more sub-files with the actual passwords, and a container for some other private data, and so on. The editor takes care of transparently encrypting and decrypting your files using one of the strongest algorithms (Serpent), and all you need to remember will be the master passphrase you supplied to encrypt.

Apart from this I have read elsewhere that there are plugins and scripts you can add for getting transparent editing of encrypted files for popular editors like Gedit or Vim, but all of those ways involve more tinkering. CryptoTE is just extract and use.

All the best!

#4

Thank you for the valuable suggestions. I just need to try test it how well it works. I also would like to use the currently default program, now named “Passwords and Keys” - previously known as “Seahorse”. Then we can proclaim SOLVED.

Great contribution, wolfman!

1 Like
#5

Thank you for commenting! It is greatly appreciated, but I do want to try out the “Seahorse”, which has now been named “Passwords and Keys”. It seem to have been adopted as it appears as part of the default installation.
Your suggestions are very valuable!
OldAl.