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EncFS provides an encrypted filesystem in user-space. It runs in userspace, using the FUSE library for the filesystem interface. EncFS is open source software, licensed under the LGPL.
EncFS is now over 10 years old (first release in 2003). It was written because older NFS-based encrypted filesystems such as CFS had not kept pace with Linux development. When FUSE became available, I wrote a CFS replacement for my own use and released the first version to Open Source in 2003.
EncFS encrypts individual files, by translating all requests for the virtual EncFS filesystem into the equivalent encrypted operations on the raw filesystem.
For more info, see:
- The excellent encfs manpage
- The technical overview in DESIGN.md
Over the last 10 years, a number of good alternatives have grown up. Computing power has increased to the point where it is reasonable to encrypt the entire filesystem of personal computers (and even mobile phones!). On Linux, ecryptfs provides a nice dynamically mountable encrypted home directory, and is well integrated in distributions I use, such as Ubuntu.
EncFS has been dormant for a while. I've started cleaning up in order to try and provide a better base for a version 2, but whether EncFS flowers again depends upon community interest. In order to make it easier for anyone to contribute, it is moving a new home on Github. So if you're interested in EncFS, please dive in!
EncFS has a few features still not found anywhere else (as of Dec 2014) that may be interesing to you:
encfs --reverse
provides an encrypted view of an unencrypted folder.
This enables encrypted remote backups using standard tools like rsync.