Ecryptfs Mounting Error Needs More Details: mount.ecryptfs: Failed to perform eCryptfs mount: [-32]

[naisanza]

Ecryptfs does not provide a helpful error when it fails to find a passphrase in the user's kernel keyring when mounting an encrypted directory.

The solution is to show an error that says, "Failed to perform eCryptfs mount, stored passphrase not found: [-32]"

The error reported by ecryptfs is the following, in system log:

mount.ecryptfs: Failed to perform eCryptfs mount: [-32]

in console output:

mount: mount(2) failed: No such file or directory
Error mounting eCryptfs: [-1] Operation not permitted

Below is the console output:

eric@skylab:~$ sudo ./mount.sh
Unable to find a list of options to parse, defaulting to interactive mount
Passphrase:
Select cipher:
 1) aes: blocksize = 16; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 32
 2) blowfish: blocksize = 8; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 56
 3) des3_ede: blocksize = 8; min keysize = 24; max keysize = 24
 4) twofish: blocksize = 16; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 32
 5) cast6: blocksize = 16; min keysize = 16; max keysize = 32
 6) cast5: blocksize = 8; min keysize = 5; max keysize = 16
Selection [aes]:
Select key bytes:
 1) 16
 2) 32
 3) 24
Selection [16]:
Enable plaintext passthrough (y/n) [n]:
Enable filename encryption (y/n) [n]: y
Filename Encryption Key (FNEK) Signature [655d7d308b95b589]: e43d8413a70fc94e
Unable to find a list of options to parse, defaulting to interactive mount
Attempting to mount with the following options:
  ecryptfs_unlink_sigs
  ecryptfs_fnek_sig=e43d8413a70fc94e
  ecryptfs_key_bytes=16
  ecryptfs_cipher=aes
  ecryptfs_sig=655d7d308b95b589
mount: mount(2) failed: No such file or directory
Error mounting eCryptfs: [-1] Operation not permitted
Check your system logs; visit <http://ecryptfs.org/support.html>

[naisanza (naisanza)]

Propose Bug title change to "New Ecryptfs Mounting Error Detail" for better clarity

[Tyler Hicks (tyhicks)]

Hello and thanks for reporting this issue.

There are actually quite a few messages related to not finding the correct key in the kernel keyring that are printed to the syslog in this case. You pasted one of them but I don't see the others in your bug description. Here's what I see:

Mar 27 14:23:26 sec-vivid-amd64 kernel: [ 132.827393] Could not find key with description: [655d7d308b95b589]
Mar 27 14:23:26 sec-vivid-amd64 kernel: [ 132.827404] process_request_key_err: No key
Mar 27 14:23:26 sec-vivid-amd64 kernel: [ 132.827408] Could not find valid key in user session keyring for sig specified in mount option: [655d7d308b95b589]
Mar 27 14:23:26 sec-vivid-amd64 kernel: [ 132.827411] One or more global auth toks could not properly register; rc = [-2]
Mar 27 14:23:26 sec-vivid-amd64 kernel: [ 132.827416] Error parsing options; rc = [-2]
Mar 27 14:23:26 sec-vivid-amd64 mount.ecryptfs: Failed to perform eCryptfs mount: [-32]

That seems sufficient enough to convey the error. Perhaps even too verbose and unfriendly. Do you not see these error messages on your system?

[naisanza (naisanza)]

You are right. I was only looking for mount.ecryptfs errors in the log and wasn't expecting it to come from the kernel. Let's close out this report.

Though it seems it's likely to be a common issue, and having the output to stdout instead of to the logs might be a bit more helpful.