Encrypted system suddenly requests passphrase?!

[yarox]

Hey there,

I already posted this question in the German speaking forum, but to enhance the chance of rescuing my data, I also start this thread.

I updated my system last night. After rebooting, suddenly a password was required to decrypt the volume (it never asked for a PW after previous updates!). I cannot remember setting a passphrase intentionally. So it is a fact that I do not know this passphrase.

As brute forcing does not seem to be an option, I am searching for another way to access my system. I do have the geli encryption key. I do not have a recovery key (as I did not set a passphrase...). Is there any chance to recover old meta data from the disks, to, e.g., get a system from last year? Is there any possibility to access the encrypted system with the means available I do not think of?

The system contains personal photographs from about ten years, including birth and first years of our daughter and lots of work data of my wife.

Thanks in advance!
yarox

 

[jingle]

What kind of update did you perform? ZFS pool update or system update?

When you do an update, FreeNAS usually creates a ZFS snapshot on the freenas-boot pool before the system updates were applied.
Try booting up your system in the previous snapshot.

 

[yarox]

Hi jingle,

I already tried to boot in previous snapshot (was a system update). The volume is still locked and requires a passphrase.

 

[m0nkey_]

Without recovery keys or remembering if you set a password or not, you're going to have a hard time unlocking the pool. You're going to need to recover from backup at this point. In order to avoid such issues in the future, it's generally recommended not to encrypt your pool.

 

[Mr_N]

Just out of curiosity, why have an encrypted pool and not set a passphrase?

 

[depasseg]

Just out of curiosity, why have an encrypted pool and not set a passphrase?

So that the data on the drives is encrypted in the case of an RMA for instance, without the hassle of entering a passphrase after every boot.

 

[Mr_N]

maybe i should have worded it differently :P

why have an encrypted pool and not save a recovery key?