Question

11

How do I move my encrypted /home to a new computer?

rated 0 times [ 11] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 5969 / 3 Years ago, mon, september 13, 2021, 10:51:11

Hi I have a new notebook and I want to move my home data to the new computer.

I think there are multiple ways of doing this

copy all to a external hdd and move back on new computer

do an Deja-Dup backup and then restore on the new computer

rsyc/move to new computer via sshfs

...?

My question is how do I keep the current ecrypt encryption of /home in place and get it working properly on the new computer.
How do I have to install the new computer so I can use the encrypted home files from the old?

If I would use Deja-Dup do I need to worry about the ecrypt stuff on the old machine or does the new installation simply enctypt everything new?

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

fieldcheon

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 24

Total Questions: 105

Total Answers: 109

Location: Western Sahara

Member since Tue, Feb 16, 2021

3 Years ago

fieldcheon questions

1 Gutenprint plugin for GIMP

Fri, Apr 1, 22, 05:58, 2 Years ago

1 Steam UI not launching after upgrading from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04

Fri, Feb 10, 23, 10:31, 1 Year ago

1 Problem installing displaycalgui

Wed, Feb 2, 22, 03:31, 2 Years ago

1 Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS frequently hangs on reboot using amdgpu after linux-firmware update

Sun, Aug 1, 21, 20:43, 3 Years ago

1 Partition will not mount Automatically

Sat, Aug 14, 21, 01:24, 3 Years ago

View All

answered 3 Years ago raldership · Accepted Answer

Great question! I actually do this quite frequently (every few months). To do so, I use rsync to copy all of my /home partition/directory from the OLD machine to the NEW one.

First, ensure that you have openssh-server and ecryptfs-utils installed and running on the NEW machine.

sudo apt-get install openssh-server ecryptfs-utils

You could install your public SSH key in the root user's /root/.ssh/authorized_keys file. But I usually set a root password on the NEW machine.

sudo passwd

Also, on the NEW machine, create a new user, who's name and password precisely matches the name and password on the old machine.

sudo adduser YOURUSER

Make absolutley sure that YOURUSER is NOT currently logged into either the NEW machine or the OLD machine.

Now, from the OLD machine, as root, rsync your /home directory from the OLD to the NEW machine:

sudo rsync -aP /home/ NEW:/home/

Finally, make absolutely sure that the files on the NEW machine are owned by YOURUSER:

sudo chown -R /home/.ecryptfs/YOURUSER /home/YOURUSER

And that should do it! You should be able to login as normal to your NEW machine and read and write your data!

Full disclosure: I'm the author and maintainer of Ubuntu's Encrypted Home Directory feature.