HOWTO Encrypt CD/DVDs in Ubuntu

This guide can be adapted to any distro, its not Ubuntu specific.

Installing necessary tools

sudo apt-get install aespipe mkisofs loop-aes-utils

Chose a password

You need to chose a 20+ character password and DO NOT FORGET IT, you will NEVER get your data back if you forget the password.

Creating the CD/DVD image

Make a directory called backup then copy the files you want to burn into the backup directory.
We are using AES encryption, you can chose from 128 or 256 bit key lengths, I recommend 256.

mkisofs -r backup | aespipe -e aes256 > backup.iso

or for 128 bit key length

mkisofs -r backup | aespipe -e aes128 > backup.iso

Mounting the image

First we need to load some modules

sudo modprobe aes
sudo modprobe cryptoloop

For 128 bit key lengths:

sudo mount -t iso9660 backup.iso /mnt/iso -o loop=/dev/loop0,encryption=aes128

For 256 bit key lengths:

sudo mount -t iso9660 backup.iso /mnt/iso -o loop=/dev/loop0,encryption=aes256

This will mount the image in /mnt/iso (make sure you have the directory before you try to mount)

Burning

You can burn the image with your favorite program (gnomebaker, k3b), you might get some warnings about the image but you can ignore them.

Mounting the new CD/DVD

First make sure you loaded the aes and cryptoloop modules (see above)
sudo mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/iso -o loop=/dev/loop0,encryption=aes256