Ubuntu

How to protect a folder: password

Asked by prashan

I have a folder that shouldn't be viewed by others.
What is the easiest way to do it in Linux

Thanks
Prashan

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Andrea Corbellini (andrea.corbellini) said : 		#1

Hi,

The process for creating an encrypted folder is described here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedPrivateDirectory

It should contain all the information you need. If not, feel free to ask for any doubt you have.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

I'd just set the owner to your username and usergroup then chmod it to 600

so for a user foo and a folder named bar

chown foo:foo ./bar; chmod 600 ./bar

Now only your usrname can access the data

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Andrea Corbellini (andrea.corbellini) said : 		#3

Setting permissions is not a safe way to protect data against people. In fact, any person that can use `sudo` will be able to see any folder. Also any person with physical access to the machine may see the data, if not encrypted: for example, you can view files using a live CD or, in the worst case, putting the hard disk on an another computer.

This is why I think that encrypting the directory is the best way to restrict access to it.

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