Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
75 lines (55 loc) · 3.78 KB

example-joplin.md

File metadata and controls

75 lines (55 loc) · 3.78 KB

Setup emount for Joplin and Joplin-desktop (linux/mac)

(This file is part of the emount project)

Here's an example setup for Joplin, an awesome markdown editor that runs on linux, macos, windows, and mobile apps. Joplin already encrypts notes before transmitting them to a server, but they are not encrypted on disk on your local machine. The one-line script below uses emount to add local file encryption to Joplin.

Follow the instructions below for "joplin", if you use the ncurses cli version, or "joplin-desktop" if you use the electron-based gui app. If you use both, do both, since they store data in different locations.

1. one-time setup: move existing data to a new encrypted volume

Shut down Joplin/Joplin-desktop before you do this, to ensure all current edits are saved.

Joplin (cli) stores runtime data in a single folder $HOME/.config/joplin. Encrypted data will be moved to joplin.enc in the same folder, and the original folder path will be the emount mountpoint. When emount+joplin are not running, the joplin data folder will be empty.

cd $HOME/.config
emount --init joplin.enc --from joplin
# move the data to a backup location. You can delete the joplin.sav folder later,
# after you've confirmed that the volume was created correctly, and that you remember the password.
mv joplin joplin.sav
mkdir joplin

Joplin-desktop (the electron-based gui app) requires an extra step because it stores runtime data in two folders, $HOME/.config/Joplin and $HOME/.config/joplin-desktop. We will put them both into a single encrypted volume, and use symlinks so the joplin-desktop app can find them.

cd $HOME/.config
mkdir joplin-desktop-data
mv Joplin joplin-desktop joplin-desktop-data
ln -s joplin-desktop-data/Joplin Joplin
ln -s joplin-desktop-data/joplin-desktop joplin-desktop
emount -i joplin-desktop-data.enc -f joplin-desktop-data
# move the data to a backup location. You can delete the .sav folder later,
# after you've confirmed that the volume was created correctly, and that you remember the password.
mv joplin-desktop-data joplin-desktop-data.sav
# create new empty mount-point
mkdir joplin-desktop-data

2. Create one-line launch script

Instead of running joplin or joplin-desktop, you will now be running a one-line script that invokes emount, which mounts the decrypted volume, runs joplin/joplin-desktop, and, after the app exits, the decrypted volume is unmounted, leaving only encrypted data on disk.

joplin Place the script in $HOME/bin/joplin

emount --run $HOME/.config/joplin.enc \
      --mount $HOME/.config/joplin \
      /usr/bin/joplin

joplin-desktop (linux) Place the script in $HOME/bin/joplin-desktop

emount --run $HOME/.config/joplin-desktop-data.enc \
      --mount $HOME/.config/joplin-desktop-data \
       /usr/bin/joplin-desktop

joplin-desktop (macos) Place the script in $HOME/bin/joplin-desktop

emount --run $HOME/.config/joplin-desktop-data.enc \
     --mount $HOME/.config/joplin-desktop-data \
       /Applications/Joplin.app/Contents/MacOS/Joplin

Ensure the script is executable, and in your path before /usr/bin, so that the script always runs.

Comments

  • Tip: For the greatest safety against hackers, malware, and potential data loss, don't keep joplin or joplin-desktop running all the time. During the time it's running, unencrypted data is present on your machine in $HOME/.config/joplin-desktop (a private folder), and could be read by someone with access to your physical machine or if they can access your account over a network. Risk of exposure is minimized if you get into the habit of closing the app when you aren't using it.