GELI compatibility with GBDE

[Christian Baer]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 02:36:03 +0000 Jack T wrote:

> My question is: can GELI access
> a partition that was encrypted by GBDE?

This is a fair while back, but since the answer wasn't really given in
the thread: definately NO.

geli and gbde use *entirely* different concepts on storing the data.
While geli uses the same key for the whole provider, gbde uses
different, random ones. At the same time, geli uses IVs which gbde does
not use. Even at a writing level, the two are different. I won't go into
this at the moment  - I'm still in the process of understanding it
myself. :-)

What I can tell you is this: making gbde and geli compatible is like
making a plane and a submarine compatible, in the sense that they can
both fly and go underwater without any drawbacks.

Regards
Chris