Securing data on laptop's hdd

Question

I was wondering which is the best way to secure/encrypt data in the hard disk on a laptop that runs Ubuntu Oneiric? Setting LVM encryption?

I am mostly concerned about having my laptop lost or what ever, and I do have some sensitive information on the laptop I usually carry with me. I am not worried about backing up the data, because the data is always located on 2 computers and synced between them.

Answer 1

LVM encryption would work, and probably other alternatives too (like truecrypt)

Hard to tell which one would be the best, since one might be easier to setup, another one could be faster, and so on.

Since your goal is to protect sensitive information, and LVM enc. could do the job, I'd stick with it.

Just be carefull if you loose your notebook and then recover it. Someone could insert some pre-ubuntu-boot app that could steal your password before the ubuntu takes action, for example.

Answer 2

You could use ecrtypfs https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/serverguide/C/ecryptfs.html

Which offers full disk encryption, you can set it up during installation and also after, it works great on the main drive.

Note that ecrtypfs can encrypt your swap partition as well, which is very important.

For external drives (usually not sda) you could use luks, Im using it without LVM as it makes less sense in desktop/laptop settings.