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TrentLarson (talk | contribs) Add reference for details about File-Level vs Full-Drive encryption |
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'''Filesystem-level encryption''', often called file or folder encryption, is a form of [[disk encryption]] where individual files or directories are [[encryption|encrypted]] by the [[file system]] itself. This is in contrast to [[full disk encryption]] where the entire partition or disk, in which the file system resides, is encrypted.
The advantages of filesystem-level encryption include<ref name="FileVsFull">{{cite web|url=http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2376&Itemid=87|title=File Level vs. Full Drive Encryption|author=Bill Bosen|publisher=[http://wwpi.com Computer Technology Review]|date=2007-07-25}}</ref>:
* flexible file-based [[key management]], so that each file can be and usually is encrypted with a separate encryption key
* individual management of encrypted files e.g. incremental backups of the individual changed files even in encrypted form, rather than backup of the entire encrypted volume{{clarify|how it differs from a _non-crypto_ incremental-backup, please... and the purpose (e.g. importance of backing up to another encrypted physical-disk so data remains secure but a lost token, lost disk, etc doesn't make the data irretrievable?)|date=January 2011}}
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==General-purpose file systems with encryption==
Unlike cryptographic file systems or [[full disk encryption]], general-purpose file systems that include filesystem-level encryption do not typically encrypt file system [[metadata]], such as the directory structure, file names, sizes or modification timestamps. This can be problematic if the metadata itself needs to be kept confidential. In other words, if files are stored with identifying file names, anyone who has access to the physical disk can know which documents are stored on the disk, although not the contents of the documents.
One exception to this is the encryption support being added to the [[ZFS]] filesystem. Filesystem metadata such as filenames, ownership, ACLs, extended attributes are all stored encrypted on disk. The ZFS metadata relating to the storage pool is stored in [[plaintext]], so it is possible to determine how many filesystems (datasets) are available in the pool, including which ones are encrypted. The content of the stored files and directories remain encrypted.
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* [[List of cryptographic file systems]]
* [[Disk encryption]]
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
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