Encrypting the disks on OpenMediaVault

This post is assuming that every disk does not have any important data and/or no critical data on it. Encrypting disk(s) with data will cause data loss.

Why would we want to encrypt our disk(s)?

To prevent unauthorized users that have physical access to the disks and walk away with it.

To encrypt the disk drives, make sure to install the plugin called openmediavault-luksencryption. Once it is installed, a new tab named Encryption will be available.

1. Navigate to Storage > Encryption then select Create
2. In the new windows, select the disk you would like to encrypt from the Device drop-down menu
3. Enter the encryption key in the Passphrase field (do NOT lose this Passphrase)
4. Confirm the Passphrase then click on Create
5. Then you will get a prompt if you are sure to encrypt the disk. Click Yes if you want to continue
6. Once done, click Apply when the yellow banner appears
7. Repeat steps 1 – 6 for each disk you would like to encrypt.

Now, we need to make a backup of the LUKS header.

1. Navigate to Storage > Encryption then select the disk
2. Click on Recovery
3. Select the Backup-header
4. Save this LUKS header because it may come in handy in the future
5. Repeat steps 1 – 4 for each encrypted disk

When done, each disk needs to be unlocked for OMV to write and read data.

1. Navigate to Storage > Encryption then select the disk
2. Click Unlock
3. Enter the passphrase in the Passphrase field
4. Click on Unlock
5. Repeat steps 1 – 4 for each encrypted disk. A blue dot should appear in the Unlock column once the disk has been unlocked

We need to format and set the file system to each disk and mount each disk to be usable

1. Navigate to Storage > Files Systems
2. Click on Create to add the newly encrypted disks
3. Select the disk from the Device drop-down menu
4. Enter a label that makes sense to you in the Label field
5. Select the file system type from the File System drop-down menu
6. Click Ok
7. Click the newly formatted disk
8. Click Mount
9. Click on Apply
10. Repeat steps 1 – 9 for each disk

That is pretty much it.

Cheers!