Enkripta

Enkripta encrypts folders and files on Linux Mint (Cinnamon/Nemo) with AES-256, and makes it feel like a native part of the system: double-click from the desktop, right-click actions in Nemo, and its own icon for encrypted files. Everything is installed with a single script, without unusual dependencies and without touching anything outside your personal home folder (sudo is not required).

English is now the main language of the project. Spanish documentation is available in Español.

What's new

🌐 English interface, Spanish included

• The whole program is available in English and Spanish: installer, dialogs, menus, terminal output and the Nemo right-click actions. It follows your system language (es* → Spanish, anything else → English) and remembers your choice.
• Switch any time with enkripta.sh -l, L) in the terminal menu, or Switch language in the graphical menu.
• Commands now have English names (encrypt, decrypt, change-password...). The original Spanish ones (cifrar, descifrar...) keep working, so existing scripts are unaffected.
• Language only changes the text you see: switching it never modifies a vault, and a vault created in one language opens in the other.

🛡️ More robust

• Failures don't cost you data. A wrong password is harmless, and a corrupted vault can't leave a half-written file behind.
• Hostile vaults are rejected. Unexpected or symlinked members, malformed password slots and path traversal in the metadata are refused, and unsafe source folders are refused before encrypting.
• Password changes are safe. Changing or removing a password replaces only its slot (atomically) and never touches the encrypted data.
• Awkward paths just work. Spaces, quotes, shell characters and Unicode in names, even when your $HOME contains spaces.
• Cleaner install and uninstall. The installer refuses sudo, can be run again safely, and uninstalling leaves your own GPG keyring and Desktop folder alone.
• Tested against abuse. Six automated suites, one of which reintroduces known bugs to prove the tests catch them. See Tests.

Screenshots

Install from the terminal or ZIP

git clone https://github.com/filonux/Enkripta.git
cd Enkripta
chmod +x script/enkripta-instalador.sh
./script/enkripta-instalador.sh

The integration is installed in your personal home folder (~/.local/...):

• The program, at ~/.local/bin/enkripta.sh.
• Its icon.
• A shortcut in the Applications menu (opens the graphical assistant).
• A shortcut on the desktop, ready to open with a double-click.
• The .cvault file type, with Enkripta set as the default application for opening it.
• Two Nemo right-click actions: 🔒 Encrypt with Enkripta and 🔓 Open Enkripta vault (shown in Enkripta's language, see Language).

Optional: install with Scriptya

Scriptya, a menu for your scripts, can launch the installer for you: copy script/enkripta-instalador.sh (it is self-contained) into your scripts folder and run it from Scriptya's menu. Launched this way it only installs (or updates) Enkripta; to uninstall, see Uninstall.

Scriptya's Change Icon option can also swap Enkripta's icon for any of the alternatives in assets/icon/, which is why there are several. Re-running the installer restores the default icon.

Uninstall

./script/enkripta-instalador.sh --uninstall

This removes everything Enkripta installed: shortcuts, Applications menu entry, .cvault association, Nemo actions and the ~/.local/bin/enkripta.sh script itself, leaving no trace. Your .cvault files are never touched.

Two things are deliberately treated with care because they are not Enkripta's: ~/.gnupg (kept if it already existed or holds your own keys or settings; removed only when it is still the fresh, empty keyring GPG created on its first use) and your Desktop folder (only the enkripta.desktop shortcut inside is deleted, never the folder). The GTK/Nemo "recent files" history is not cleaned either and may keep paths to .cvault files you opened; clear it from Nemo or delete ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.

Requirements

To install and use Enkripta: gpg, tar, gzip, shred, base64 and realpath. They are all included by default in Linux Mint. Optional but recommended: zenity (graphical dialogs) and notify-send (desktop notifications). If zenity is missing, the installer warns you and gives you the exact command to install it.

Usage

From the desktop or Nemo

• Right-click a file or folder → 🔒 Encrypt with Enkripta.
• Double-click a .cvault file → a menu opens: decrypt, change password, add password or remove password.
• The Applications menu icon → opens an assistant that asks what you want to do (encrypt a file, a folder, or open an existing vault).

From the terminal

If you add ~/.local/bin to your PATH (the installer warns you if it is not already there), you can use:

Command	What it does
enkripta.sh encrypt <path>	Encrypts a file or folder and creates the .cvault file
enkripta.sh easy-encrypt <path>	Automatically decides whether to encrypt or open the vault
enkripta.sh <vault.cvault>	Opens the vault menu (decrypt / manage passwords)
enkripta.sh decrypt <vault.cvault>	Decrypts a vault
enkripta.sh update <path>	Re-encrypts the content while keeping the same passwords
enkripta.sh change-password <vault.cvault>	Replaces an existing password
enkripta.sh add-password <vault.cvault>	Adds an alternative password
enkripta.sh remove-password <vault.cvault>	Removes a password (when more than one exists)
enkripta.sh --version	Shows the installed version
enkripta.sh -l	Switches the saved interface language between English and Spanish

The original Spanish command aliases are still available (cifrar, descifrar, actualizar, cambiar-contrasena, anadir-contrasena, eliminar-contrasena, etc.), so existing workflows are unchanged. Graphical variants are also available from the terminal: gui, gui-encrypt <path> and gui-menu <vault.cvault>, which are the commands used internally by the application menu, desktop shortcut and Nemo.

Language

Enkripta detects the system language and uses Spanish when the active locale starts with es; otherwise, it defaults to English. The selected language is stored per user in ~/.config/enkripta/language, so it persists between launches.

For a quick switch, run:

enkripta.sh -l

In the terminal vault menu, L) (or l)) switches between English and Spanish without leaving the menu. The graphical menus also include a Switch language: English / Spanish option for the same quick toggle. Switching language changes interface text only; vault format, file names, commands, password handling and encryption data are not changed.

The Nemo right-click actions follow Enkripta's language, not the system's: Nemo would pick a Name[xx] translation by the system locale, so the actions are written already translated. enkripta.sh -l (or the language option of the graphical menus) rewrites them; an action you deleted is not recreated, and nothing is created if the integration is not installed. While you have not chosen a language, Enkripta follows the system's and resyncs the actions the next time it is opened from Nemo, the Applications menu or the desktop.

Tests

Run any suite from the project root; each one works in a temporary directory:

./tests/test_enkripta.sh
./tests/test_ui_aesthetics.sh
./tests/test_real_simulation.sh
./tests/test_integration_contract.sh
./tests/test_adversarial_regression.sh
./tests/test_suite_sensitivity.sh

Suite	What it protects
test_enkripta.sh	Core behavior: encryption and password lifecycle, English/Spanish parity of every message, language detection and switching, install and uninstall
test_ui_aesthetics.sh	Graphical dialogs, checked against a zenity stub: correct arguments (--entry, not --password), translated buttons, escaped _, & and <, and text that fits in both languages
test_real_simulation.sh	End-to-end use: real terminal (PTY) prompts, graphical menus, Nemo actions and the master password
test_integration_contract.sh	Desktop Entry, MIME type and Nemo actions (including safe %F path parsing), resolved through the real GLib/GIO stack; documentation links
test_adversarial_regression.sh	Hostile or broken input: tampered vaults, path traversal, symlinks, special characters in paths, and failures that must not destroy data
test_suite_sensitivity.sh	Tests the tests: reintroduces known bugs on purpose and checks that the suites catch them

Native Nemo/Zenity checks are reported as SKIP, never as a false PASS, when those programs are not available.

Independent passwords per vault

Most password-based encryption tools tie the data to a single password: if you want to share access with someone else, or change it, you have to encrypt everything again from scratch.

Enkripta works differently, in a way similar to LUKS keyslots: the data is encrypted only once with a random master key, and that master key is stored encrypted separately for each password you add. The result:

• You can have several valid passwords for the same vault (for example, yours and someone else's), and any of them unlocks it.
• Adding, changing or removing a password is a small and fast operation: it does not re-encrypt the content, only the key wrapped in that slot.
• You can revoke someone's access (by removing their password) without touching the rest or re-uploading/moving the entire encrypted file.

Design limitation: removing a password deletes its slot, but does not generate a new master key or re-encrypt the data. If that password was ever used to decrypt the vault, or that person keeps a copy of the .cvault from before it was removed, they could still open those old copies. To truly revoke access from someone who already saw the content, re-encrypt the original from scratch (a new master key) instead of just removing their password.

Security

• Symmetric AES-256 encryption via GPG.
• Strengthened key derivation: S2K mode 3, more than 65 million iterations, SHA-512.
• Each .cvault validates its own content before decrypting (rejecting tampered files or suspicious internal names).
• When encrypting, you are offered the option to overwrite and remove the original with shred (multiple passes). The effectiveness of overwriting depends on the filesystem and storage device.

Compatibility

Enkripta is designed and tested for Linux Mint 22.3 with Cinnamon (Nemo file manager), which is where the right-click actions, desktop icon and .cvault association come from. It should work in the same way on other Mint versions or Cinnamon-based distributions, since it only uses standard folders in your user account (~/.local/share/applications, ~/.local/share/mime, ~/.local/share/nemo/actions, etc.).

Compatibility layers

Enkripta is built in three layers, and only the last one depends on Mint/Nemo:

Layer	What it provides	Where it works
Core	Encrypt and decrypt from the terminal	Any Linux with GNU tools, the requirements and GnuPG 2.2.7 or newer
Desktop integration	Applications menu entry, desktop shortcut, .cvault file type and double-click	Should work on any desktop that follows the freedesktop.org standards (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, MATE...)
Nemo actions	Right-click entries	Nemo (Cinnamon) only

The desktop layer is just standard files in your home folder, and it does not need ~/.local/bin in your PATH. Helper tools (xdg-open, xdg-user-dir, notify-send, the MIME and icon cache updaters) are optional: they are used when present and skipped when not. Only the graphical dialogs strictly need zenity.

Other Linux distributions

The installer's install hints mention apt; on other families use the equivalent (zenity and the notification tool are optional but recommended):

Family	Command
Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives	sudo apt install gnupg zenity libnotify-bin
Fedora, RHEL and derivatives	sudo dnf install gnupg2 zenity libnotify
Arch and derivatives	sudo pacman -S gnupg zenity libnotify
openSUSE	sudo zypper install gpg2 zenity libnotify-tools

Then run the installer as usual. On desktops other than Cinnamon:

• The menu entry, desktop shortcut and .cvault double-click should work as they do on Mint. If double-click does not open Enkripta, set enkripta.desktop as the default application for .cvault files in your file manager.
• The Nemo actions are only used by Nemo; if you do not use it, remove them with enkripta.sh remove-nemo-actions.
• Right-click in other file managers is not included (see Roadmap), but most of them let you add a custom action that runs enkripta.sh gui-encrypt <path> or enkripta.sh gui-menu <vault.cvault>, the same commands the Nemo actions use.

Roadmap

• English version of the program and documentation.
• Explore support for other file managers (Nautilus, Dolphin) if there is demand.
• .deb package for one-click installation without going through git clone.

License

Enkripta is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3). See the LICENSE.txt file for the full text.

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Made by Filonux.