relnotes

Cryptmount是对Linux系统下的文件系统以及用户设备、文档等进行加密的系统.

		    Release notes for cryptmount-1.1.1

		 	   RW Penney, 22nd September 2006

Introduction
============
cryptmount is a utility for GNU/Linux operating systems which allows
an ordinary user to mount an encrypted filing system without requiring
superuser privileges, and which assists the system-administrator in
creating and managing encrypted filesystems & swap-partitions.

cryptmount was written to address differences between the capabilities of
the loopback device of the 2.4/2.6 kernel series and the newer, preferred,
device-mapper mechanisms of the 2.6 kernel series. cryptmount automatically
performs the various stages of configuring any supporting loopback
and device-mapper targets needed to access an encrypted filing system
before actually mounting it, but without requiring the user to be
explicitly granted root privileges through either knowing the root password
or through tools such as sudo. Filesystems managed by cryptmount can also
be designated so that only the superuser can (un)mount them.

By allowing user-level, on-demand, mounting of encrypted filing systems,
cryptmount allows filesystems that are only used intermittently to be
left in a more secure state than if they have to be made available by
the system administrator whenever the system is booted.
cryptmount also provides an aid to the system manager in allowing easier
control over the configuration and mounting of encrypted filesystems,
especially within system start-up scripts.


Summary of new features in cryptmount-1.1
=========================================

This (stable) release focuses on extensions in functionality, including:

  * support for encrypted swap partitions

  * multiple formats for key-files, currently either OpenSSL or libgcrypt

  * addition of a script for mounting filesystems/swap partitions at boot

It has been tested on the following systems:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)

  * SuSE Linux 10.0 OSS (x86)

  * Mandriva Linux 2005 (x86)

  * FedoraCore-5 (x86)

  * FedoraCore-4 (x86)


Summary of new features in cryptmount-1.0
=========================================

This (stable) release focuses on extensions in robustness, user-friendliness
and internationalization, including:

  * addition of options for changing the access password for each target

  * addition of mechanisms for generating
    random decryption keys for new filesystems

  * addition of compile-time option for responding to invocation via
    linked executables named "cryptumount", "cryptunmount" etc.

  * added support for GNU gettext, including French translations of
    manual pages and common messages

  * improved mechanisms for preventing unauthorized unmounting of filesystems

It has been tested on the following systems:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)

  * SuSE Linux 10.0 OSS (x86)

  * Mandriva Linux 2005 (x86)

  * FedoraCore-4 (x86) (may need extra configuration of
            security policies governing losetup, mke2fs etc)


Summary of new features in cryptmount-0.4
=========================================

This (beta) release focuses on extensions in functionality and robustness,
including:

  * addition of switches allowing filesystem mounting to be restricted
    only to superuser

  * addition of automatic filesystem checking (via fsck) prior to mounting

  * compile-time choice between in-built mount, or /bin/mount etc

  * addition of facility for unencrypted filesystem key
    (e.g. stored on removable device such as a USB key)

It has been tested on the following systems:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)

  * FedoraCore-4 (x86) (may need extra configuration of
            security policies governing losetup, mke2fs etc)

  * Mandriva Linux 2005 (x86)

  * SuSE Linux 10.0 OSS (x86)


Summary of new features in cryptmount-0.3
=========================================

This (beta) release focuses on extensions in functionality and robustness,
including:

  * addition of '--all' command-line option, for example to allow easier
    unmounting of all encrypted filing systems via 'cryptmount --unmount --all'

  * multiple targets can be specified on the command-line, for example
    for mounting multiple filing systems at the same time

  * support for loopback filingsystems >2GB has been improved

  * all mounting/unmounting activity is now recorded via syslog

  * security checks on the configuration file have been extended

  * improved documentation of password-changing & fsck tasks

It has been tested on the following systems:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)

  * FedoraCore-4 (x86) (may need extra configuration of
            security policies governing losetup, mke2fs etc)

  * Mandriva Linux 2005 (x86)

  * SuSE Linux 10.0 OSS (x86)


Summary of new features in cryptmount-0.2
=========================================

This (beta) release focuses on extensions in functionality, including:

  * addition of optional configuration-file parameters for selecting
    a subset of blocks within a device for hosting the filing system

  * addition of optional configuration-file parameter for selecting
    a particular loopback device rather than having one chosen automatically

  * addition of optional cipher-IV parameter to configuration-file

  * improved detection of errors in the configuration-file

  * basic security checks performed on configuration-file and
    target-description before any privileged action is taken

It has been tested on the following systems:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)

  * FedoraCore-4 (x86) (may need extra configuration of
            security policies governing losetup, mke2fs etc)

  * Mandriva Linux 2005 (x86)

  * SuSE Linux 10.0 OSS (x86)


Summary of new features in cryptmount-0.1
=========================================

This (beta) release focuses on improvements in robustness, portability
and documentation, including:

  * improved support for systems with glibc built against kernel-2.4 headers
  
  * addition of mechanisms for updating /etc/mtab on (un)mounting filing
    systems, so the programs such as df can operate normally on filesystems
    controlled by cryptmount

  * clearer examples on usage within README & the cryptmount man-page
    (avoiding ambiguities about whether 'aes256', rather than 'aes',
    is a valid kernel-module name)

It has been tested on the following systems:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)

  * FedoraCore-4 (x86) (may need extra configuration of
            security policies governing losetup, mke2fs etc)

  * Mandriva Linux 2005 (x86)

  * SuSE Linux 10.0 OSS (x86)


Summary of new features in cryptmount-0.0.3
===========================================

This (alpha) release further improves robustness, and portability including:

  * a bug which restricted protection of cipher-key to the Blowfish and
    md5 algorithms has been fixed, thereby allowing any cipher/hash
    supported by the openssl library to be used

  * differences in behaviour of libdevmapper which may or may not create
    device-nodes below /dev/mapper, have been allowed for

  * an automatic testing script has been written

  * improved detection of failure to decrypt the cipher-key has been added

It has been tested on the following systems:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)

  * SuSE Linux 10.0 OSS (x86)


Summary of new features in cryptmount-0.0.2
===========================================

This (alpha) release of cryptmount improves general robustness and documentation as follows:

  * a basic manual-page has been written
  
  * a locking mechanism has been added, to ensure that only the
    (non-root) user that mounted a filing system can unmount it

  * tidying-up of devices occurs if mounting fails

It has been tested on the following system:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)


Summary of features in cryptmount-0.0.1
=======================================

This initial (pre-alpha) release of cryptmount offers the following features:

  * support for all encryption algorithms supported by the kernel

  * encryption of cipher-key by Blowfish algorithm & md5 message-digest

It has been tested on the following system:

  * Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge") (x86, kernel-2.6)


Acknowledgements
================
The author gratefully recognizes the assistance of being able to refer
to the source-code for the following packages:
    openssl-0.9.8 (specifically apps/enc.c, by Eric Young)
    devicemapper-1.01.05 (by Sistina UK)
    utillinux-2.12q (specifically mount/lomount.c)
Although no code has been directly copied from any of these or other packages
in writing cryptmount, certain similarities of structure cannot be avoided
in some areas.

Thanks are also due to the following people who have been
very helpful in testing cryptmount:
    Holger M黮ler	(RH spec-file, Makefile.in patches, LARGEFILE testing)
    Levente Farkas	(patches to RH spec-file)
    Sebastian Rasmussen	(patches for readonly loopback devices)
    Laszlo Boszormenyi	(debian-specific packaging)
    Baruch Even		(patches for man-pages)

# $Revision: 125 $, $Date: 2006-09-22 20:39:18 +0100 (Fri, 22 Sep 2006) $