From owner-freebsd-geom@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 27 00:27:48 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BDFB16A418 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:27:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from news@nermal.rz1.convenimus.net) Received: from dd17730.kasserver.com (dd17730.kasserver.com [85.13.138.103]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 208B213C43E for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:27:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from news@nermal.rz1.convenimus.net) Received: from nermal.rz1.convenimus.net (sub87-230-112-118.he-dsl.de [87.230.112.118]) by dd17730.kasserver.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 83B9D1802C022 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:56:53 +0100 (CET) Received: by nermal.rz1.convenimus.net (Postfix, from userid 8) id 13E251521D; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:20:57 +0100 (CET) To: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org Path: not-for-mail From: Christian Baer Newsgroups: gmane.os.freebsd.devel.geom Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:20:57 +0100 (CET) Organization: Convenimus Projekt Lines: 25 Message-ID: References: <478A93BF.4070404@vwsoft.com> <20080114011412.33a91fac@gumby.homeunix.com.> <478B5F8A.7090408@vwsoft.com> <36878.3953287222$1200345389@news.gmane.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: sunny.rz1.convenimus.net X-Trace: nermal.rz1.convenimus.net 1201389657 10510 192.168.100.5 (26 Jan 2008 23:20:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@convenimus.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:20:57 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.1 (FreeBSD/6.2-RELEASE-p8 (sparc64)) Subject: Re: how-to: encryption + journaling (geli + gjournal) X-BeenThere: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: GEOM-specific discussions and implementations List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:27:48 -0000 On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:15:37 +0000 RW wrote: > There's no need to be rude, I'm only trying to help. You guys are both a little sensitive, aren't you? :-) > In my experience writing from /dev/random to a raw partition is almost > twice as fast as writing to an .eli device - essentially it's single > verses double encryption. True, this *is* faster. But there is also a reason for encrypting the random numbers - although I would probably use zeros which will look pretty much like random numbers on a disk once they are encrypted. If you use a checksum (geli init -a) geli will need to know what is on the disc. So you actually have to fill the disc through geli before you can use it. If you don't do this you will get lots of errors stating that the data on the disc is corrupt. I guess the reason why blanking a disc with encrypted random numbers is the double entropy and the fact that there are cases where you have to blank a disc through geli. Regards, Chris