Linux mount /home in a ramdisk - a paranoid configuration of gnome for Ubuntu

This article is a quick howto which describes how to mount /home in a ramdisk . The aim is to leave a minimum of traces on the hard disk.

configuration

In this configuration, there is a separation between system and data.

- partitions:
    1 - system encrypted with luks
    2 - data encrypted in a truecrypt FAT32 partition,
- /tmp and /home are in a tmpfs. The user preferences are loaded at each startup from data partition,
- no swap,

The system will be installed and configured using an Ubuntu USB drive and the script infondLinux.

wipe data

From an Ubuntu USB key (or CD):

- use gparted to create a unique partition,
- mount (let's assume the partition is /dev/sda1)

# mkdir /media/disk
# mount /dev/sda1 /media/disk
# touch /media/disk/full

- wipe (launch and go to bed)

# dd if=/dev/urandom of=/media/disk/full
# rm /media/disk/full

install your system

install Ubuntu

partitions:
    1 - system encrypted with luks encryption
    2 - data not encrypted (later encrypted with truecrypt FAT32 partition,
    3 - an unsecured partition is kept for VMs, films... (performances reasons).

no swap!

FAT32 is used in case you would like to access your data from Windows

.bash_history -> /dev/null

$ su -
# for user in $(ls /home); do rm /home/$user/.bash_history; ln -s /dev/null /home/$user/.bash_history; done

create TrueCrypt partition

use the whole data partition as TrueCrypt volume

install Infondlinux

# wget http://infondlinux.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/infondlinux.sh
# sudo infondlinux.sh

save your preferences

Most of programs put your configuration preferences in home. You'll need to save your current home in the data partition each time you modify your preferences.
This configuration will be loaded at each boot. we'll deal with this loading later.

delete /home

# for user in $(ls /home); do rm -r /home/$user; mkdir /home/$user; done

Reboot and configure as you like your gnome desktop and programs (firefox, xchat, chrome, wifi, seahorse, etc.)

close all windows, open your truecrypt partition and run (sudo)

# mkdir /media/truecrypt1/savehome
# cp -r /home/* /media/truecrypt1/savehome

Don't forget, you'll need to save your preferences often if you don't want to reconfigurate your softs at each boot.

let's become invisible

create tmpfs

modify /etc/fstab

$ su -
# echo "none /tmp tmpfs defaults,size=128M 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
# echo "none /home tmpfs defaults,size=512M,mode=1777 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

truecrypt prompt to load your /home at each gnome start

add (just under first comments) into /etc/gdm/Init/Default
(replace /dev/sda3 by your data partition) :

# mount truecrypt
truecrypt /dev/sda3 /media/truecrypt1

# load /home
cp -r /media/truecrypt1/savehome/* /home

# umount truecrypt
truecrypt -d /dev/sda3

# chown
for user in $(ls /home); do
    chown -r $user:$user /home/$user
done