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losetup man page

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LOSETUP(8)                   MAINTENANCE COMMANDS                   LOSETUP(8)




NAME

       losetup - set up and control loop devices


SYNOPSIS

       losetup [ -e encryption ] [options] loop_device file
       losetup -F [options] loop_device [file]
       losetup [ -d ] loop_device
       losetup -a


DESCRIPTION

       losetup  is  used to associate loop devices with regular files or block
       devices, to detach loop devices and to  query  the  status  of  a  loop
       device.  If  only  the loop_device argument is given, the status of the
       corresponding loop device is shown.


OPTIONS

       -a     Show status of all loop devices.

       -C itercountk
              Runs hashed password through itercountk thousand  iterations  of
              AES-256  before using it for loop encryption. This consumes lots
              of CPU cycles at loop setup/mount time but  not  thereafter.  In
              combination  with  password  seed  this  slows  down  dictionary
              attacks. Iteration is not done in multi-key mode.

       -d     Detach the file or device associated  with  the  specified  loop
              device.

       -e encryption
              Enable  data  encryption.  Following encryption types are recog-
              nized:

              NONE   Use no encryption (default).
              XOR    Use a simple XOR encryption.
              AES128 AES
                     Use 128 bit  AES  encryption.  Password  is  hashed  with
                     SHA-256 by default.
              AES192 Use  192  bit  AES  encryption.  Password  is hashed with
                     SHA-384 by default.
              AES256 Use 256 bit  AES  encryption.  Password  is  hashed  with
                     SHA-512 by default.

              twofish128 twofish160 twofish192 twofish256
              blowfish128 blowfish160 blowfish192 blowfish256
              serpent128 serpent192 serpent256 mars128 mars192
              mars256 rc6-128 rc6-192 rc6-256 tripleDES
                     These  encryption types are available if they are enabled
                     in kernel configuration  or  corresponding  modules  have
                     been loaded to kernel.

       -F     Reads  and  uses mount options from /etc/fstab that match speci-
              fied  loop  device,  including  offset=  sizelimit=  encryption=
              pseed= phash= loinit= gpgkey= gpghome= itercountk= and looped to
              device/file name. loop= option in /etc/fstab must  match  speci-
              fied  loop  device name. Command line options take precedence in
              case of conflict.

       -G gpghome
              Set gpg home directory to gpghome, so that gpg uses  public/pri-
              vate  keys  on  gpghome directory. This is only used when gpgkey
              file needs to be decrypted using public/private keys. If  gpgkey
              file  is  encrypted  with  symmetric cipher only, public/private
              keys are not required and this option has no effect.

       -H phash
              Uses phash function to hash password. Available  hash  functions
              are  sha256, sha384, sha512 and rmd160. unhashed1, unhashed2 and
              unhashed3 functions also exist for compatibility with some obso-
              lete implementations.

              Hash  function random does not ask for password but sets up ran-
              dom keys and attempts to put loop to multi-key mode.  When  ran-
              dom/1777  hash  type  is used as mount option for mount program,
              mount program will create new file system on the loop device and
              construct initial permissions of file system root directory from
              octal digits that follow the slash character.

              WARNING! DO NOT USE RANDOM HASH TYPE ON PARTITION WITH  EXISTING
              IMPORTANT DATA ON IT. RANDOM HASH TYPE WILL DESTROY YOUR DATA.

       -I loinit
              Passes a numeric value of loinit as a parameter to cipher trans-
              fer function. Cipher transfer functions are  free  to  interpret
              value as they want.

       -K gpgkey
              Password  is  piped  to  gpg so that gpg can decrypt file gpgkey
              which contains the real keys  that  are  used  to  encrypt  loop
              device.  If  decryption requires public/private keys and gpghome
              is not specified, all users use  their  own  gpg  public/private
              keys  to decrypt gpgkey. Decrypted gpgkey should contain 1 or 64
              or 65 keys, each key at least 20  characters  and  separated  by
              newline.  If  decrypted gpgkey contains 64 or 65 keys, then loop
              device is put to multi-key mode. In multi-key mode first key  is
              used  for first sector, second key for second sector, and so on.
              65th key, if present, is used as additional input to MD5 IV com-
              putation.

       -o offset
              The  data start is moved offset bytes into the specified file or
              device. Normally offset is included in IV  (initialization  vec-
              tor)  computations. If offset is prefixed with @ character, then
              offset is not included in IV computations. @ prefix  functional-
              ity  may  not  be  supported  on  some older kernels and/or loop
              drivers.

       -p passwdfd
              Read the passphrase from file descriptor passwdfd instead of the
              terminal. If -K option is not being used (no gpg key file), then
              losetup attempts to read 65 keys  from  passwdfd,  each  key  at
              least  20  characters  and separated by newline. If losetup suc-
              cessfully reads 64 or 65 keys, then loop device is put to multi-
              key  mode.  If losetup encounters end-of-file before 64 keys are
              read, then only first key is used in single-key mode.

       -r     Read-only mode.

       -s sizelimit
              Size of loop device is limited to sizelimit bytes.  If  unspeci-
              fied  or  set to zero, loop device size is set to maximum avail-
              able (file size minus offset). This option may not be  supported
              on some older kernels and/or loop drivers.

       -S pseed
              Sets  encryption  password  seed pseed which is appended to user
              supplied password before hashing. Using different seeds for dif-
              ferent  partitions  makes dictionary attacks slower but does not
              prevent them if user supplied password is guessable. Seed is not
              used in multi-key mode.

       -t timeout
              make  the  password  prompt  time out after timeout seconds have
              passed by.

       -T     Asks password twice.

       -v     Verbose mode.


RETURN VALUE

       losetup returns 0 on success, nonzero on failure. When losetup displays
       the  status of a loop device, it returns 1 if the device is not config-
       ured and 2 if an error occurred which prevented losetup from  determin-
       ing the status of the device.



FILES

       /dev/loop0,/dev/loop1,...   loop devices (major=7)


EXAMPLE

       The  following  commands  can  be  used as an example of using the loop
       device.

       dd if=/dev/zero of=/file bs=1k count=500
       head -c 2925 /dev/random | uuencode -m - | head -n 66 \
           | tail -n 65 | gpg --symmetric -a >/etc/fskey9.gpg
       losetup -e AES128 -K /etc/fskey9.gpg /dev/loop0 /file
       mkfs -t ext2 /dev/loop0
       mount -t ext2 /dev/loop0 /mnt
        ...
       umount /dev/loop0
       losetup -d /dev/loop0


RESTRICTION

       XOR encryption is terribly weak.


AUTHORS

       Original version: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@athena.mit.edu>
       AES support: Jari Ruusu



Linux                             2004-11-25                        LOSETUP(8)


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