loop-aes

[wdef]

Hi TC folk,

I'm somewhat out of touch.  I read somewhere that loop-aes support was dropped in Tc3.x onwards. In tc2.x the kernel had been patched for loop-aes and the loop driver was not separate as a module.

Is the loop driver now a module in the base?
What was the rationale behind no longer patching either the kernel or the loop driver for loop-aes?

Thanks

Phil

[curaga]

Loop-aes was not updated for unlimited, dynamic loops, while the kernel one was. I think I opened a feature request at that time against loop-aes, but I think there's been no response at all.

In short, no more 256 limit, and less ram usage with less loops.

[wdef]

Loop-aes was not updated for unlimited, dynamic loops, while the kernel one was.

Sorry do you mean the loop-aes kernel patch does not support an unlimited number of loop devices, or are you talking about the loop-aes patched losetup, or ..?

Thanks

[curaga]

The loop-aes module (loop.c) does not support it.

[wdef]

The loop-aes module (loop.c) does not support it.

Am I right in thinking that TC v3.x creates eight loop devices by default on boot /dev/loop0, /dev/loop1 ... , doesn't use the max_loop boot code anymore, but creates extra loop devices on demand after boot?

[roberts]

Yes.

[wdef]

Hi Robert, I am out of date.

I might try and find out why the loop-aes patches don't support this.

There's a comment in the loop.c sources that says tools have to be able to talk to this feature to make it work.

[wdef]

FYI I emailed loop-AES developer Jari Ruusu about this and his response doesn't look promising. I doubt that support for this behavior will be included in loop-AES any time soon.