ecryptfs team mailing list archive

[Tyler Hicks <tyhicks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I believe this is a problem that Dustin has ran into before.  It is due
to ext4 and zero-length files (http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/03/12
/delayed-allocation-and-the-zero-length-file-problem/).

When a file is created in an eCryptfs mount, we go ahead and create the
file in the lower filesystem and write out the eCryptfs metadata
(encrypted file key, decrypted file size, etc.).  Anytime that a file
open is performed, we expect that metadata to be present or we consider
it a non-eCryptfs file and ignore it by returning -EIO.  You are seeing
the warning message from an open on a file that doesn't have the proper
eCryptfs metadata.

We may be able to let the zero-length files slide and generate and write
the header information on the first file write.  The problem with this
is that it may break the way that users expect ecryptfs_passthrough to
work.  You can touch a file in the lower filesystem (creating a zero
length file) and then any subsequent writes from the eCryptfs mount
point will be passed through instead of encrypting the data.

That may just be a little trick that I do for testing and not something
that any users actually do.  I need to think about that a little more.

-- 
Ecrypt errors in dmesg
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/372014
You received this bug notification because you are a member of eCryptfs,
which is subscribed to ecryptfs-utils in ubuntu.

Status in “ecryptfs-utils” source package in Ubuntu: New

Bug description:
Binary package hint: ecryptfs-utils

Keep getting the following messages in my dmesg, not sure if problem or false error messages. Using encrypted /home on a ext4 file system.

[  912.551732] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 1014.971663] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 1014.971667] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 1014.972750] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 1014.972754] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 1950.936089] CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 15000 nsec
[ 3604.742511] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3604.742516] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3627.252245] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3627.252256] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3627.280981] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3627.280992] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3634.952965] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3634.952977] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3634.979929] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3634.979940] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3641.448686] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3641.448697] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3641.494153] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3641.494157] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3646.439896] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3646.439900] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3646.455610] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3646.455614] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3897.059734] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3897.059739] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 3897.083600] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 3897.083606] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 4088.146042] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 4088.146053] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 4088.209406] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 4088.209417] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO
[ 4088.232342] Valid eCryptfs headers not found in file header region or xattr region
[ 4088.232352] Either the lower file is not in a valid eCryptfs format, or the key could not be retrieved. Plaintext passthrough mode is not enabled; returning -EIO

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: ecryptfs-utils 73-0ubuntu6
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ecryptfs-utils
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686