Why Encrypt a Drive?
Encrypting your drive or drives is a foundational part of computer security.
Even if the drive in question is removed from the machine, it still cant be accessed.
This is where VeraCrypt comes in.
What Is VeraCrypt?
VeraCrypt is a popular open-source encryption tool thats used by security professionals as well as everyday people.
That said, VeraCrypt is far from the onlyTrueCrypt alternativeout there.
If you just need to encrypt a few files, I recommend you justencrypt a folder, instead.
To start, you first need to load the program.
Go to theVeraCrypt download pageand select your distro of choice.
Once the package is downloaded and installed, start the program.
Youll see the below screen, which isnt very clear at first glance.
Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek
To get started, we first need to hit Create volume on the lower left.
This starts the VeraCrypt wizard which will guide us through the rest of the process step by step.
You just slide in your choice and confirm by clicking on Next.
You now get the choice to create a standard or hidden volume.
Unless youre very worried about physical security, I would keep it to the default (standard).
Youll get a list of all the partitions on your gadget.
For the purposes of this article I set up avirtual machinewith custom partitions.
Whatever you do,do not encrypt your file or boot drives!It will make your system unusable.
Also note that the drive needs to be unmounted.
I used the lazy option from ourLinux mounting guide.
Once youve selected the drive you want to encrypt, check you entered it correctly and hit Next.
Choose Yes to throw caution to the wind and type your Linux admin password.
With all that done, you’re gonna wanna pick the level ofencryption.
Unless you have specific requirements, I advise you to stick with the defaults here.
AES is a reliable protocol and much the same goes for the hash.
Now you set the password.
check that its bothmemorable and strong, and store it somewhere safe.
We recommend somegreat password managersyou can use.
Ignore all the other options here.
Choose the option thats best for you; I went with No.
The penultimate step is choosing thefile system.
Youll get another warning, hit Yes.
Once thats done, thats it for volume creation.
Exit the wizard and go to the main screen of VeraCrypt again.
Youll need to enter the password you created earlier for the volume.
VeraCrypt will do some work and your drive is ready for use.
Creating an encrypted drive in Linux is made fairly easy thanks to VeraCrypt.
The reward is a lot of secure storage space.
