How does Encfs work?

Question

I cannot understand the idea behind Encfs. Even ready example, offered by my Ubuntu, does not work for me:

encfs ~/crypt ~/.crypt

There is an error:

unable to locate a mount point

Should I initialize the files somehow? What is wrong?

Answer 1

It will give you this error if both of the conditions are trues:

• ~/crypt is not a directory (e.g. is missing, or a non-directory called ~/crypt already exists), and
• ~/crypt cannot be created by encfs (mkdir would fail, e.g. permissions issues, or a non-directory called ~/crypt already exists)

See the source code at http://code.google.com/p/encfs/source/browse/trunk/encfs/main.cpp?spec=svn27&r=27

Cheers, V.

Answer 2

Maybe you're mixing up the directories. ~/crypt and ~/.crypt must both be existing directories where the first parameter to encfs will be the store, where the encrypted files will be stored by encfs and the second parameter is the place where you want to place your files you want to be encrypted.

See also here for a guide on how to set up and use encfs.