FreeOTFE logo FreeOTFE
(PDA version of documentation)

Appendix D: Glossary

CDB
 - Acronym: Critical Data Block
 - See "Critical Data Block"

Critical Data Block
 - aka CDB
 - A block of data holding data vital to the correct mounting and use of an encrypted partition (volume). Among other things, a volume's CDB contains the master key used for encrypting/decrypting data as it is written/read from a the volume. CDBs are encrypted. A full description of what FreeOTFE stores in it's CDBs can be found in the Technical Details section.

OTFE
 - Acronym: On The Fly Encryption
 - Any of a number of encryption systems where data is stored on disk in encrypted format. When it is read in from disk, it is transparently decrypted "on the fly" before user applications receive it. In a similar manner, when applications, etc write data back to the disk, it is automatically encrypted before being written.