Mounting an Encrypted LUKS Volume

It’s really easy. Let’s assume sdb2 is the encrypted LUKS device (because it is for me). lsblk shows the tree as this.

sdb               8:16   1    29G  0 disk
├─sdb1            8:17   1   2.5G  0 part
└─sdb2            8:18   1  26.5G  0 part

Open the LUKS container with

cryptsetup open /dev/sdb2 luks_volume

(where luks_volume is the unimaginative name of the container).

Now lsblk should show something like

sdb               8:16   1    29G  0 disk
├─sdb1            8:17   1   2.5G  0 part
└─sdb2            8:18   1  26.5G  0 part
  └─luks_volume 254:0    0  26.5G  0 crypt

and we just have to mount it.

mkdir /mnt/secrets/
mount /dev/mapper/luks_volume /mnt/secrets/

That’s it. When done,

umount /mnt/secrets
cryptsetup close luks_volume
rm -r /mnt/secrets/

to remove the mapping and mount point and clear the key from memory.