File encryption

24.04.2

fscrypt is available for encrypting directories on ext4 filesystems, but it is not officially supported.

22.04.5

fscrypt is available for encrypting directories on ext4 filesystems, but it is not officially supported.

20.04.6

fscrypt is available for encrypting directories on ext4 filesystems, but it is not officially supported.

18.04.6

We no longer support Encrypted Home directories.

We no longer support Encrypted Private directories using eCryptfs.

fscrypt is available for encrypting directories on ext4 filesystems, but it is not officially supported.

16.04.7

We support Encrypted Home directories.

We support Encrypted Private directories using eCryptfs.

14.04.6

We support Encrypted Home directories.

We support Encrypted Private directories using eCryptfs.

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) introduced Encrypted Private directories using eCryptfs, allowing users to store sensitive data securely. Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) introduced Encrypted Home directories using the same technology.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) dropped support for Encrypted Private and Encrypted Home directories. eCryptfs is considered deprecated. You can still set up encrypted directories manually using fscrypt and the ecryptfs-setup-private utility. Similarly to eCryptfs, fscrypt is a Linux kernel feature, but these are distinct implementations.

Full Disk Encryption (FDE) using dm-crypt with LUKS is the recommended approach for file system encryption and should be preferred instead of fscrypt.