As with many utilities today, it is possible to encrypt our entire hard drive from the moment we execute its installation. The reasons for this can be diverse, from protecting our privacy to ensuring that there is no interference with our system.
In the next tutorial we will show you how to encrypt the data on your hard drive using a minimal system image from the Ubuntu installation system. A simple method to secure your information from strange looks.
In the first place we will have to get a image minimal Ubuntu installation system, the well-known network installation version, or NetInstall. This installation method has several very positive factors that make it recommendable compared to others, such as that, in the first place, the image is very light (it barely weighs 50 MB) and is downloaded quickly so that we can start our procedure in a few minutes; also, you will not have to download more than those packages that you are really going to need within your system, so the time and space required will be just and necessary for your team; And finally, when the packages are downloaded live, you will always have the latest version of each one of them.
Once the image is downloaded, we will start up on our computers and begin with the initial configuration steps: choose the language and select the layout of our keyboard.
The system will then perform hardware detection and, as we are in the network installation, it will try to automatically configure the network devices of our computer. Next we will select the mirror of packages.
Then additional modules will be loaded required to continue with the installation process. We will configure our username and password.
The system will notify us that encrypt our folder home provide privacy to our data even if the equipment is stolen, since it must mount this unit each time we log in to the computer and dismount it when we exit it. Next, we will later select the time zone of our country.
Then we will choose a guided disk partitioning. Remember that it is not possible to establish a dual boot of the computer and the complete encryption of the disk.
Enter the encryption key (A strong password is longer than 20 characters). Verify that the partitioning scheme is the one you like and continue.
It is recommended select to have security updates installed automatically. And so begins the installation of the system where around 1500 packages will be downloaded, depending on the software we have selected and the type of desktop we choose.
Once the installation is finished, our unit will be encrypted and protected from any assembly outside our user.