Encrypting and decypting a flash drive

Note:

• You need root for most of these commands
• Replace X with the target drive letter

Encrypting a flash drive that was previously unencrypted

1. Install cryptsetup

   pacman -S cryptsetup

2. List your USB devices with either

   lsblk

   or

   fdisk -l

3. Write random data to disk

   shred -v -n 1 /dev/sdX

   or

   dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

4. Set up a new dm-crypt device in LUKS encryption mode

   cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdX

5. Set up mapping

   cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdX flashy

6. Verify the new virtual block device mapper

   ls -arlt /dev/mapper | tail

7. Format the disk with ext4

   mkfs -t ext4 /dev/mapper/flashy

8. Create a mount location

   mkdir /run/mount/flashy

9. Mount the device your filesystem:

   mount /dev/mapper/flashy /run/mount/flashy

10. Verify the the mapper is properly mounted using the df command:

    df -h /run/mount/flashy

Accessing your flash drive later on.

1. Decrypt the flash drive

   cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdX flashy 

   Look it up

   ls -arlt /dev/mapper | tail

2. Create a mount location

   mkdir /run/mount/flashy

3. Mount the flash drive

   mount /dev/mapper/flashy /run/mount/flashy

4. Access your files

   cd /run/mount/flashy

5. Unmount the flash drive

   umount /run/mount/flashy

6. Cleaup

   rm -r /run/mount/flashy

7. Close your flash drive

   cryptsetup luksClose flashy