Tomb

Tomb, also known as The Crypto Undertaker, is an open source and completely free software project that helps Linux users to easily integrate encryption technologies into their desktop environments. It can also be used to securely backup personal files and access encrypted volumes (local or external).

Generates encrypted storage files

The utility will generate encrypted storage files that can be only be opened and closed only by using generated and protected keyfiles. Tomb acts like a locked folder, which can be easily hidden inside your filesystem. In addition, you will be able to keep the keyfiles safe on a private cloud storage or a portable USB device.

How does it work?

Tomb features both a command-line utility and a graphical application that runs in the system tray area of any open source desktop environment. The shell script can be used to create “tombs,” which are encrypted storage files. For example, if you want to create a 500MB tomb called “precious” run the “tomb dig -s 500 precious.tomb” “tomb forge precious.tomb.key” and “tomb lock precious.tomb -k precious.tomb.key” commands in a terminal emulator.

The first command will literally dig 500MB on your disk drive to create the tomb, the second command will forge the encryption key and the last command will encrypt the tomb with the key. To open the “precious” tomb, use the “tomb open secret.tomb -k precious.tomb.key”. Close it with the “tomb close” command or via the panel applet.

I want it! Does it run on my Linux box?

At the moment, Tomb has been successfully tested on the dyne:bolic and Debian GNU/Linux operating systems, but being a shell script it should run on any distribution of Linux, on both 32-bit and 64-bit instruction set architectures. It’s available for download as a universal source archive, but it can be easily installed from the default software repositories of your Linux box.

What is new in this release:

• gettext translation strings

What is new in version 1.5.2:

• Removed automatic guessing of key file besides tomb to encourage users to keep tomb and key separated, but also to simplify the code in key retrieval and avoid a bug occurring in the previous version.

What is new in version 1.5.1:

• Minor bugfixes to documentation, error handling, support for multiple and encrypted swap partitions and qr code engraving.
• This release also includes some minor code refactoring of load_key() and loop mount checks. Also the tray app is updated to gtk-3 and works simply with a tomb name as argument.
• Documentation was updated accordingly.

What is new in version 1.5:

• Minor bugfixes to documentation, error handling, support for multiple and encrypted swap partitions and qr code engraving.
• This release also includes some minor code refactoring of load_key() and loop mount checks. Also the tray app is updated to gtk-3 and works simply with a tomb name as argument.
• Documentation was updated accordingly.