problem with loop-aes

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: problem with loop-aes
started by: bumblebee bat

Posted by bumblebee bat on Aug. 06 2006,00:47

The version of loop-aes included in the latest DSL requires that passwords have at least 20 characters. This is retarded for many reasons:

- Although 20 characters might be needed to make full use of the 128-bit key space, shorter passwords can be secure.
- It's ok to *warn* a user, but software shouldn't *prevent* a user from doing something.
- DSL can't access an encrypted partition that was created with a short password by another distro.

Reproducing the problem:

in a root shell type: losetup -e aes /dev/loop0 /dev/[some partition]
Password: [type a short password]
"error: password must be at least 20 characters"

This can probably be fixed by upgrading the version of loop-aes used by DSL (1.6i-1) to the latest version (3.1d) which they claim works with 2.0-2.6 kernels.