How can I decrypt a LUKS-encrypted ext4 drive by Windows based software?

Question

I encrypt my HDD in Ubuntu.
Now I want to access my HDD in Windows too.
Is there any way in Windows to decrypt an ext4 LUKS-encrypted drive?

Solution

If you are using LUKS, it can be accessed using LibreCrypt (a sequel to FreeOTFE). This will unlock the LUKS volume, but to make Windows understand ext4 you will still need an ext4 driver such as ext4fsd.

However, this combination used to work in Windows XP, but both tools are somewhat unmaintained and may not work on recent Windows versions today. For a shared disk you should instead switch to NTFS or exFAT filesystem, with either VeraCrypt or BitLocker for disk encryption.

(Ubuntu supports NTFS via the ntfs-3g driver. You can unlock VeraCrypt on Linux either via cryptsetup as a "tcrypt" disk or by installing the VeraCrypt software itself, and BitLocker disks can be opened via dislocker.)

Comments

[user1686]

Are you referring to eCryptFS, or LUKS, or the new ext4 built-in encryption feature?

[Jihan]

It's LUKS. I set password protection while formatting HDD.

[user1686]

Then it's not ext4-encrypted, it's only ext4-formatted – but LUKS-encrypted.

[Jihan]

I'm sorry; I didn't know that. Then what should I do now?

[Jihan]

Actually, I've motivated myself to use Ubuntu. And that's why I switch to Ext4 filesystem. It seems pretty good to me than NTFS or FAT. But, truly speaking, sometimes I need Windows. And now I need just an at-least combination.

[xenoid]

If you run Windows in a VM (and AFAIK, if you got a PC with a valid OEM Windows licence, you can install a legit copy of Windows in a VM), then you can access the Linux files from the VM (unencrypted by the Linux host).