FSCRYPT In Linux 6.7 More Adaptable For Inline Encryption Hardware

Linux's FSCRYPT file-system encryption framework allows for native file encryption support on the likes of EXT4, F2FS, and UBIFS. FSCRYPT can make use of inline encryption hardware for accelerating the file-system encryption support and with the Linux 6.7 kernel will work for more scenarios.

Eric Biggers of Google today sent out the FSCRYPT updates for the Linux 6.7 merge window, which is just a handful of patches this round. Most significant with the new FSCRYPT patches is allowing the crypto data unit size to be configured. By now allowing the granularity of the file contents for encryption to be configured, it can be adapted to any constraints of the inline encryption hardware on capable systems.

To date the FSCRYPT crypto data unit size was just the file-system block size while moving forward it can be adjusted if necessary to match any thresholds of the inline encryption hardware.

Also notable with the FSCRYPT pull are some prerequisites for the ongoing work by Btrfs file-system developers for extent-based encryption support.