can encrypted /home be converted to unencrypted or should the partition be removed?

[CompizUser]

Hi all,

I installed a Fedora14 recently on a small PC an had voted on /home encryption in anaconda. In retrospect this was not the greatest idea since it requires input upon boot and the PC is supposed to be a media station connected to a TV (and maybe controlled by IR remote in the future)...

Since it is a relatively new install I can just redo it and not encrypt /home. But since I use a custom 2.6.38 kernel (due to my relatively new realtek WLan which doesn't work in 2.6.35) this would also require a new compilation of said kernel (not the worst problem in the world but still time consuming).

So my question is thus: Can I simply decrypt the whole partition somehow (haven't seen anything in the cryptsetup dokumentation) or can I simply wipe it clean and reformat it, mounting it afterwards as the new /home? (This certainly requires adjustment of the initrd I'd assume since it expects an encrypted volume doesn't it?)

Thanks for your ideas!
CU

Edit: After doing some more research it seems that just wiping the /home partition is not a solution since it's inside a lv mapped partition. I also found something like dmconvert, unfortunately it is sparsly documented and I cannot make it reencrypt my partition with an empty passphrase.
Btw I don't know why I had this lvm in the first place and not simply set up different partitions. Can anyone tell me why anaconda always does this as a default?
Summarising: I'll reinstall my system and encrypt specific directories when the system is setup correctly.

[Skull One]

Hello,
the crypto settings are stored in the file /etc/crypttab (see 'man crypttab' for more information).
If you do not want the password to be asked, you can write it into the file (I will not comment this...).
I guess you can just reformat the home partition, but do not forgot to update the file /etc/crypttab, and maybe
/etc/fstab.

[japafi]

Edit: After doing some more research it seems that just wiping the /home partition is not a solution since it's inside a lv mapped partition

having partition inside LVM does not affect wiping the partition or keeping/removing encryption.

Simple solutions:
Either set the unlock password to /etc/crypttab
or
- copy the stuff from your home somewhere else
- checkwhat is the device being decrypted (/etc/crypttab will tell you)
- remove the encrypted partition from /etc/crypttab and /etc/fstab
- mkfs the device which was previously used to be decrypted

before doing any of the above though, please provide your
/etc/fstab
and
/etc/crypttab

here, we can give you more detailed instructions and there is less chance of accidental data loss.

[CompizUser]

I haven't reinstalled everything yet so I might do it as suggested above.

Here is my fstab:

/dev/mapper/vg_kleener-LogVol00 /                       ext4    defaults        1 1
UUID=7994c93b-b54e-491a-84ef-487a1c52c3ca /boot                   ext4    defaults        1 2
/dev/mapper/luks-584c5376-873f-449d-9414-93ea47c6a313 /home                   ext4    defaults        1 2
/dev/mapper/vg_kleener-LogVol02 swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults   luks-584c5376-873f-449d-9414-93ea47c6a313 UUID=584c5376-873f-449d-9414-93ea47c6a313 none 
     0 0

and my crytptab

luks-584c5376-873f-449d-9414-93ea47c6a313 UUID=584c5376-873f-449d-9414-93ea47c6a313 none

so if I understood this correctly I just umount my partition, reformat it and wipe it from fstab and crypttab. Then I can just put it in fstab wih the proper fs type and reboot?
CU

[japafi]

You need to copy the contents of /home to somewhere safe, where you can restore them.

Start by
blkid | grep 584c5376-873f-449d-9414-93ea47c6a313

if the result is not /dev/mapper/vg_kleener-LogVol01
then DO NOT PROCEED, then instructions below may be bad.

once you've taken backups:

umount /home
cryptsetup luksClose luks-584c5376-873f-449d-9414-93ea47c6a313
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg_kleener-LogVol01


modify /ec/fstab to mount /dev/mapper/vg_kleener-LogVol01 as home

Mount it and restore backup