Platform-independent encryption of (external) drive

Hi,

I have to achieve something, which apparently I never had to do before. I have an external drive for some backups to be stored that originate from an NTFS system. I would like to store the backup encrypted but want to be able to access it from my Fedora Linux machine(s) as well as from the MS Win machines.

I did a little bit of research and it seems that there are not many solutions out there that have clients for GNU/Linux and MS Win 10.

Actually, I think VeraCrypt is the only one that can offer what I need.
Could someone confirm that their client is stable and reliable on Fedora?

I also read that recent cryptsetup releases can read and write to BitLocker volumes but the support seems to be experimental and that, in my opition, sounds to too dangerous for a backup. Does anyone have any experience with cryptsetup access to Bitlocker volumes on Fedora?

Or are there any Windows tools that can read/write to LUKS/dm-crypt encrypted drives?

Or should I rather give up on the idea of accessing this drive from Windows and Linux?

Any hints are appreciated.

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Follow-up information:

I decided to use Bitlocker since it’s the Windows-native tool and my backup will always be generated on a Windows system with NTFS filesystem.

After creating the Bitlocker volume (used password to protect the key, no TPM, nor smartcard), I just plugged the drive into my Fedora 33 with Gnome and I am asked for a password as if I would connect a dm-crypt/LUKS device. Upon entering the password, it opens nautilus and all files are shown. Incredible! I don’t dare to write on that device but I also don’t need to. I just want to be able to read out the data from my Fedora system. Very nice! (cryptsetup version is 2.3.4)

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Glad you found a solution and interesting to know that Bitlocker works that good with Fedora.

Regarding your original question I would like to confirm anyway that VeraCrypt works fine with Fedora.
I am using VeraCrypt (GUI) on Fedora 33 & KDE to frequently exchange files with an Apple MacOS machine. The files are stored on an external USB harddrive (whole disk for VeraCrypt) and a USB thumb drive (encrypted volume file).

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Servus @paidhi
thanks for the information. Out of interest, I will install VeraCrypt GUI on both machines and give it a try with an old HDD that I have laying around here.

You may want to be certain that when you mount that drive on linux that you always mount it in read-only mode so a mistake is not made and you inadvertently write something to it.

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