TrueCrypt Tutorial: Truly Portable Data Encryption

TrueCrypt is one of the many disk encryption tools available in Linux and other Unices. Some of the features of truecrypt are as follows (and I quote):

• Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
• Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive.
• Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
• Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:
  
  1. Hidden volume (steganography).
  2. No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).
• Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: LRW.
  

Lipiec at Polishlinux.org has written a very good tutorial which explains how to setup and use truecrypt in Linux. He explains right from the start which is - download the code, compile, and install it to creating encryption volumes. Just so you know, truecrypt has been made available in deb and rpm formats as well. So if you are using one of the major Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu or Fedora, you can skip the compilation from source step.

Truecrypt is available for Linux and Windows but the developers have provided a easy to use GUI only for Windows platform. Linux users are still made to depend on the command line to setup and manage encrypted volumes using truecrypt.