Page 1 of 1

Is the swap on puppy (fossapup 9.5) encrypted or how to check if it is?

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:04 pm
by wanthinker

I'm curious to know if the swap is encrypted or not, given i use it a lot on low ram machine...

Tried different commands on this post, seems they don't show any sign of the swap being encrypted...(on my end)

Essentially, i just want to make sure :)

Any thoughts or suggestion is appreciated.


Re: Is the swap on puppy (fossapup 9.5) encrypted or how to check if it is?

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:31 pm
by mikewalsh

@wanthinker :-

You want an honest opinion..?

In the case of mainstream distros, running on powerful modern machines with buckets of RAM, encryption is fine.....if ya really WANT all that extra complication. In the case of Puppy, it's honestly more trouble than it's worth.....and on elderly, resource-starved, low-RAM hardware you're as likely to lock it up & crash it due to the extra overhead.

Mainstream distros are designed to have lots of different people logging on to them, if that's what is required. In such circumstances, it's understandable you might wish to guard against other users invading your home directory. But Puppy is a single-user, 'hobbyist' distro, intended to be run by ONE person.....usually the same individual who does the admin..! What are you going to do.....hide your own private personal data from yourself???

Doesn't make much sense, does it?

Mike. :o


Re: Is the swap on puppy (fossapup 9.5) encrypted or how to check if it is?

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:11 pm
by Flash

One way to see if the swap file or partition is encrypted might be to boot Puppy entirely into RAM (the puppy pfix=ram boot option I think), so Puppy won't look for or mount any virtual memory, then find the swap file or partition and see if it contains gibberish. I haven't tried this because I haven't needed to use swap memory for many years.


Re: Is the swap on puppy (fossapup 9.5) encrypted or how to check if it is?

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:37 pm
by wanthinker
mikewalsh wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:31 pm

@wanthinker :-

You want an honest opinion..?

In the case of mainstream distros, running on powerful modern machines with buckets of RAM, encryption is fine.....if ya really WANT all that extra complication. In the case of Puppy, it's honestly more trouble than it's worth.....and on elderly, resource-starved, low-RAM hardware you're as likely to lock it up & crash it due to the extra overhead.

Mainstream distros are designed to have lots of different people logging on to them, if that's what is required. In such circumstances, it's understandable you might wish to guard against other users invading your home directory. But Puppy is a single-user, 'hobbyist' distro, intended to be run by ONE person.....usually the same individual who does the admin..! What are you going to do.....hide your own private personal data from yourself???

Doesn't make much sense, does it?

Mike. :o

Hmm, I don't disagree with anything you said, quite the contrary; I asked _because_ i actually wanted to disable the encryption on swap (so it's faster) but since i wasn't sure if it was there or not to begin with :roll:


Re: Is the swap on puppy (fossapup 9.5) encrypted or how to check if it is?

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:48 pm
by ThruHammer

You made the right call, Mate. Think twice, do once.


Re: Is the swap on puppy (fossapup 9.5) encrypted or how to check if it is?

Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:27 pm
by mikewalsh
ThruHammer wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:48 pm

You made the right call, Mate. Think twice, do once.

Absolutely. From the original post, I wasn't sure if the OP was aware of this encryption business in relation to our Pup. I've always been the same; if I do anything, I prefer - whenever possible - to do the job once, and do it properly the first time.

I hate having to come back and put stuff right..! :D

Mike. ;)