Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
From: almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch (Werner Almesberger)
Subject: New loop devices, even with DES encryption
Message-ID: <1993Jun1.201347.7433@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 20:13:47 GMT
Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Lars Wirzenius)

Version 0 of the new loop devices patch is in

    tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/BETA/loop
and nic.funet.fi:/pub/OS/Linux/BETA/loop

The files are:

lo.0.tar.z	The loop devices patch
des.0.tar.z	DES-encryption for the kernel

Note: If you're FTPing from outside the U.S. or Canada, please get the
      DES patch from nic.funet.fi, because of the well-known US export
      restrictions.

(DES encryption is optional. The loop devices also work without it.)

Loop devices give you the ability to mount file systems from regular
files. Additionally, you can use them to have more than one file system
on one partition and to have transparent on-line encryption of all your
data.

The loop devices patch is relative to ALPHA 0.99pl10, but it'll
probably work with 0.99pl9 and 0.99pl10 too. The DES patch should work
with any recent kernel.

This is a new implementation of loop devices by Theodore Ts'o, I'm just
maintaining the code. Unlike my old loop devices, which are also in some
versions of SLS, the new loop devices will continue to work after
variable block sizes are added to the kernel.

The DES code is derived from Eric Young's DES library. I originally
wanted to use UFC crypt, but its memory requirements make it a bit
difficult to handle. Maybe later.

- Werner
-- 
   _________________________________________________________________________
  / Werner Almesberger, ETH Zuerich, CH      almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch /
 /_IFW_A44__Tel._+41_1_254_7213__________________almesber@bernina.ethz.ch_/
