HP UX Encrypted Volume and Filesystem (EVFS) manual Starting and Stopping Evfs

Starting and Stopping EVFS

This section describes the following procedures for enabling and disabling EVFS components:

•“Starting the EVFS Subsystem” (page 80)

•“Enabling Encryption and Decryption Access to EVFS Volumes” (page 80)

•“Disabling Encryption/Decryption Access to EVFS Volumes” (page 81)

•“Stopping the EVFS Subsystem” (page 82)

•“Opening Raw Access to EVFS Volumes” (page 83)

•“Closing Raw Access to EVFS Volumes” (page 83)

Starting the EVFS Subsystem

The following evfsadm start command starts the EVFS subsystem by initializing the EVFS pseudo-driver and starting the evfsevold process. The evfsevold process starts kernel threads for data encryption and decryption. You must start the EVFS subsystem to generate user keys and enable EVFS volumes. This command is executed automatically at system startup if EVFS is enabled in the /etc/rc.config.d/evfs file, as described in “Step 5: (Optional) Configuring the Autostart Feature” (page 62).

evfsadm start [-n number]

where:

-nnumber Specifies the number of threads to create for EVFS encryption and decryption processing.

Range: On single-processor systems, 1 is the only valid value.

On multiprocessor systems, the maximum number of threads is the number of processors in the system.

Default: On single-processor systems, the default is 1.

On multiprocessor systems, the default is the number of processors in the system minus 1. Setting the number of threads to a lower value can decrease EVFS throughput.

Enabling Encryption and Decryption Access to EVFS Volumes

The following evfsvol enable commands enable EVFS encryption and decryption access to EVFS volumes. The EVFS volumes must already be configured, as described in “Preparing EVFS for Configuration” (page 35). You can use the evfsvol enable command in the following ways:

•To enable a single EVFS volume without a stored passphrase: evfsvol enable [-kkeyname] evfs_volume_path

You must be the volume owner or an authorized user for the volume to execute this command.

•To enable a single EVFS volume with a stored passphrase and an entry in the

/etc/evfs/evfstab file:

evfsvol enable -p evfs_volume_path

•To enable EVFS encryption and decryption for all volumes in the file /etc/evfs/evfstab that include a key ID field:

evfsvol enable -a

where:
-a	Causes EVFS to enable encryption and decryption for all volumes in
	the /etc/evfs/evfstab file.

80 Administering EVFS