linux-kernel - Re: ecryptfs is unmaintained and untested

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Message-ID: <CANDhNCpsoPcotnrjH6y0yEBf43652DRasSsEnAyEbrKN=tjEfQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2025 23:07:56 -0700
From: John Stultz <jstultz@...gle.com>
To: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...nel.org>, 
	Tyler Hicks <code@...icks.com>, Damien Le Moal <damien.lemoal@...nsource.wdc.com>, 
	ecryptfs@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: ecryptfs is unmaintained and untested

On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 9:33 PM Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 09:50:37PM +0000, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 28, 2024, at 15:02, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > >
> > > This comment has been there since June 2021, so I think we can just
> > > delete ecryptfs now?
> >
> > I have no opinion on removing ecryptfs, but I don't how possibly
> > removing it is related to the patch I sent, as far as I can tell
> > it just means it relies on both CONFIG_BLOCK and CONFIG_BUFFER_HEAD
> > then.
> >
> > Is there any indication that the last users that had files on
> > ecryptfs are unable to update their kernels?
>
> Debian is still shipping ecryptfs-utils and is building and including
> the ecryptfs kernel module in their distro kernel.`
>
> So it seems likely that there are probably a non-zero (although
> probably relatively small) number of ecryptfs users out there.

Yeah. Sadly I'm one, as I needed something to migrate off of when
encfs was deprecated.

Is there another soon-to-be-deprecated filesystem to encrypt
directories I should move to? :)

I definitely think we need some loud warnings and Tylers' suggestion
for a read-only grace period would be helpful.

thanks
-john