[aescrypt] Suggestions - permissions, timestamps, and source file naming

[Paul E. Jones]

Andy,

> Just discovered aescrypt. It seems to be exactly what I am looking for -
> a file en/decrypter which is open source and works on linux, osx and
> windows. Thanks very much for creating this.

Well, it wasn't me alone.  Several people on this list contributed in
various ways :-)
 
> I've been adapting it to create an rpm (for redhat style linux
> distributions) and had a couple of suggestions/observations for it:
> 
> (1) File permissions
> I notice that the .aes file created by encryption under linux seems to
> take whatever umask would give it. That may be the preferred solution -
> I genuinely do not know - but I would suggest that the .aes file should
> inherit the permissions of the file it is created from. Presumably the
> same should apply on decrypting.

Honestly, I can't recall having seen a program that would inherit file
permissions from another file.  If this were an archiver, it might make
sense to do, but I'm not so sure about a tool like AES Crypt.  If I wanted
to preserve file permissions, I would tar files and then encrypt them.  In
fact, that's how I do backups ;-)
 
> (2) Time stamps
> On that subject, the encrypted version of the file, could perhaps have
> the same creation/modification time as the original. It could then also
> pass that back when it is decrypted.

This is a similar kind of request that deserves a similar kind of response.
AES Crypt does, in fact, create a new file.  Decrypting it creates a new
file, too.  So, to preserve the original timesamp of the file seems
disingenuous.
 
> (3) Name and contents of the source file It might be helpful (for
> packagers etc) if the linux source file adopted a more standard naming
> convention, and also included the man page which it also put in place.
> At present the source file is: aescrypt305_source.tar.gz I would
> suggest: aescrypt-3.0.5.tar.gz which then tar unzips to aescrypt-3.0.5/

If creating an RPM, I'd definitely agree.  I've not been entirely consistent
with respect to naming.  Once I revise the code, I might do that.

In the meantime, though, feel free to create an RPM with version numbers in
the files as you'd like to see them.  Is it your intent to get the file
distributed with one of the major Linux versions?  You'd certainly be
welcome to try, if you'd like.  Even though I have the source code readily
available, I'd love it if the software shipped with Fedora, for example.  I
just don't have time to engage folks to make that happen.

Paul