The home is mounted unencrypted on login.
I tried accessing it after doing 'su sampleuser', but it was encrypted, which is the expected behavior I guess.
I also tried changing the user's password, and then logging in, but I was redirected to the login.
So just to be sure: is there a way for root to access and decrypt a home folder from another user?
Best Answer
Yes and no. Not directly - the data can only be decrypted with the user's password, which root doesn't have.
But a malicious root user can always get around that kind of thing - they own the system. A couple of workable options come to mind, but I'm sure there are plenty of others: pulling the decrypted private key from memory while the user's logged in, or setting up a key logger to capture the user's password when they enter it.