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# tcplay

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Related articles

- Data-at-rest encryption
- TrueCrypt
- Tomb

tcplay is a free, fully featured and stable TrueCrypt implementation including multiple keyfiles and cipher cascades.

Source: github project home

## Installation

Install the tcplay package.

## Encrypting a file as a virtual volume

Invoke

    $ losetup -f

to find the first unused loopback device; in this example, `/dev/loop0`.

Note As of udev 181-5, the `loop` device module is no longer auto-loaded.

Create a new container `foo.tc`, 20M in size for instance, in the working directory:

    # fallocate -l 20M foo.tc
    # losetup /dev/loop0 foo.tc
    # tcplay -c -d /dev/loop0 -a whirlpool -b AES-256-XTS

Enter a secure password for the volume, and confirm the query to overwrite `foo.tc` with the new volume. tcplay will then write random data into the volume. Map the volume and create a filesystem on it in order to mount

    # tcplay -m foo.tc -d /dev/loop0
    # mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/foo.tc
    # mount /dev/mapper/foo.tc /mnt/truecrypt/

To unset the container,

    # umount /mnt/truecrypt
    # dmsetup remove foo.tc
    # losetup -d /dev/loop0

## Mounting an existing container for a user

Consider `/dev/loop0` the first unused loop device, `foo.tc` the TrueCrypt container, `/home/you/truecrypt/` the desired mount point. The user `you` in this example has `uid=1000` and `gid=100`. The steps for mounting the container as a virtual volume are:

1. Associate loop device with the container
2. Map the container to the loop device
3. Mount the container in the filesystem

The following commands perform the above actions.

    # losetup /dev/loop0 foo.tc
    # tcplay -m foo.tc -d /dev/loop0
    # mount -o nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid=100 /dev/mapper/foo.tc /home/you/truecrypt/

Note, if the container uses ext4 or another filesystem that supports file ownership, the `uid` and `gid` parameters are not needed and will not work. Therefore the third command would be simply:

     # mount -o nodev,nosuid /dev/mapper/foo.tc /home/you/truecrypt/

To reverse them:

    # umount /home/you/truecrypt/
    # dmsetup remove foo.tc
    # losetup -d /dev/loop0

## Using tcplay-helper

The tcplay-helper script simplifies the process of creating, mounting and unmounting tc-play containers. The script is basic, but should work fine for most users wanting to work with simple secure tc-play containers.

The following command creates a 3Mb container called foo.tc.

    # tcplay-helper create foo.tc 3M

To mount the container file we can either mount it as root with the following command. The container will be mounted under /mnt/truecrypt/

    # tcplay-helper open foo.tc

Alternatively, we can supply a username to mount the container as.

    # tcplay-helper open foo.tc archie

Finally, to close the container this command does the trick.

    # tcplay-helper close foo.tc

## See also

- tcplay(8)
- Jason Ryan: Replacing TrueCrypt
- Truecrypt Tutorial on HowToForge
- There is a good chance the CIA has a backdoor? (via wp)

Category:

- Data-at-rest encryption

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