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Helper script for installing Linux Mint in LVM on LUKS, with /boot encrypted too

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calliecameron/mint-encrypted-install

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mint-encrypted-install for Linux Mint 21.1

This is a partially-automated version of Naldi Stefano's tutorial, which was partly based on blog posts by Pavel Kogan here and here. All credit goes to them for figuring out how to do it; I just made it into a script.

The Linux Mint 21.1 installer has an option for installing on LVM inside an encrypted LUKS container, but this is only offered if you want to erase the whole disk (no dual boot), and also leaves the /boot partition unencrypted. If you want to encrypt everything including /boot, or want to install any sort of encrypted system alongside another OS for dual boot [1], you have to configure the bootloader and initramfs manually -- which is time-consuming and easy to get wrong. This script guides you through the process, and automates as many of the commands as possible, making it much easier to set up.

This is still an advanced configuration, though, and assumes you are comfortable with the terminal, shell scripts, partitioning, LVM, and installing and managing normal non-encrypted Linux systems. If in doubt, read the tutorial linked above, and above all, PLEASE BE CAREFUL. Typing anything wrong here could erase your hard drive! Make sure you test anything in a virtual machine before trying it on your real machine.

[1] You can install multiple Linux systems inside the same encrypted container (using different logical volumes as /), and the bootloader will pick those up just fine. But if you want to dual-boot alongside something else (e.g. Windows), that has to use an unencrypted partition outside the container.

Usage

Boot the Mint live USB as normal. But instead of running the 'Install Linux Mint' launcher on the desktop, open a terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get -y install git
git clone https://github.com/calliecameron/mint-encrypted-install
cd mint-encrypted-install
./mint-encrypted-install

This will guide you through the rest of the process.

Note

The script differs slightly from the tutorial it's based on. In the tutorial, two encrypted partitions are created, one for root and one for swap. In the script, we instead create one encrypted partition, set up LVM inside the partition, and create two logical volumes (one for root and one for swap). This is for backwards compatibility with the Mint 18 version of the script, so you can install Mint 21 on a machine previously set up by that version of the script without having to repartition the drive - and also because in my use-case having LVM inside the encrypted partition is itself desirable.

Mint 18, 19 and 20

The Mint 18 version of the script is on the 'mint-18' branch. The Mint 19 version of the script is on the 'mint-19' branch. The Mint 20 version of the script is on the 'mint-20' branch.

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Helper script for installing Linux Mint in LVM on LUKS, with /boot encrypted too

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