How can I mount an encrypted home directory upon SSH login using private/public key to authenticate?

Question

Is it possible to automatically mount an encrypted partition on the server when logging in using SSH keys instead of the regular password?

The home folder is a luks-encrypted partition. The current pam_mount setting is as follows:

<volume user="name" path="/dev/mapper/my_folder" mountpoint="~" />

Vitaly Kushner · Answer 1 · 2011-03-19 23:02:24Z

~/.ssh/authorized_keys allows you to specify the command that will execute upon ssh login.

You can write a shell script that will mount partition (even ask a password for it) and then "exec bash" or "exec zsh" etc.

aking1012 · Answer 2 · 2010-12-16 16:21:34Z

It puts another tool into the mix, but using sec might be an option.

"Install sec. Visit the author's website and read the documentation there. Set up sec to monitor /var/log/auth.log and run your script."

you could have it run a mount script and add a keyfile for the luks volume to get past entering a password.

That's the best I've got...

2 Answers