gnome-encfs

This is a fork from http://bitbucket.org/obensonne/gnome-encfs I mostly made a few changes useful when using it just for your Dropbox, like enabeling kernel caching of files.

gnome-encfs integrates EncFS folders into the GNOME desktop by storing their passwords in the keyring and optionally mounting them at login using GNOME's autostart mechanism.

gnome-encfs allows you to use strong passwords for EncFS folders while still mounting them painlessly (i.e. no password prompt). This is an advantage over automount solutions like pam-encfs and pam-mount which require to use the same password for EncFS folders as for your local user account. This is bad because local account passwords usually are weaker than those one should use for encrypting online stored data, e.g. in a Dropbox.

Installation

$ cd /path/to/gnome-encfs
$ install gnome-encfs /usr/local/bin

Note: You can run gnome-encfs right from the extracted package but to make use of the automount feature at GNOME login, it must be placed somewhere in PATH (as configured during a login to GNOME). Using the install command above ensures this requirement is fulfilled.

Usage

Add an EncFS folder

Suppose you have an EncFS folder at ~/.Private.encrypted which should get mounted to ~/Private. Make it known to gnome-encfs:

$ gnome-encfs -a ~/.Private.encrypted ~/Private
EncFS config file [-]: <optional custom .encfs6.xml location>
EncFS password: <enter encfs password>
Mount at login [Y/n]: <say 'y' or 'n'>

This adds the EncFS path, its mount location and password to the GNOME keyring and sets up a GNOME autostart entry to mount it at GNOME login (if enabled).

Check Anthony's EncFS hints for custom .encfs6.xml locations.

Mount an EncFS folder

If you said y above to the login mount question, the EncFS folder gets mounted automatically at GNOME login. If you prefer to mount on demand, you do that with

 $ gnome-encfs -m ~/Private

which looks up the password in the keyring and does the mounting without the need to enter the password manually.

Unmount as usual, using fusermount:

$ fusermount -u ~/Private

Other tasks

You can also show, edit and remove EncFS folders handled by gnome-enfs:

$ gnome-encfs -h

Usage: gnome-encfs --list
       gnome-encfs --mount [ENCFS-PATH-or-MOUNT-POINT]
       gnome-encfs --add ENCFS-PATH MOUNT-POINT
       gnome-encfs --edit MOUNT-POINT
       gnome-encfs --remove MOUNT-POINT

Painlessly mount and manage EncFS folders using GNOME's keyring.

Options:
  --version            show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help           show this help message and exit
  -l, --list           list all EncFS items stored in keyring
  -m, --mount          mount all or selected EncFS paths stored in keyring
  -a, --add            add a new EncFS item to keyring
  -e, --edit           edit an EncFS item in keyring
  -r, --remove         remove an EncFS item from keyring
...

Usage should be straight forward - otherwise [submit an issue][itr].

Automatically unmount EncFS folders on logout

Unfortunately there's no equivalent to GNOME's autostart scripts which could be used to automatically unmount your EncFS folders on logout (without shutting down). However, there's a manual solution using a GDM hook script: /etc/gdm/PostSession/Default. Open this file in an editor (requires root privileges) and add these lines:

mount -t fuse.encfs | grep "user=$USER" | awk '{print $3}' | while read MPOINT ; do
    sudo -u $USER fusermount -u "$MPOINT"
done

This script is executed whenever you logout from GNOME. With this line, it looks for mounted EncFS folders of the user currently logging out. Then it unmounts each, using the fusermount command (note that this command is executed as root, that's why there is a sudo -u $USER before the fusermount command).

This works independent of gnome-encfs, i.e. it unmounts any EncFS folder of the user logging out.