Luks encryption, usb key to unlock at boot. Question.

[kalpana]

Hey Folks, i'm still very new to linux and Ubuntu and was wondering if I could get some help with something i'm about to attempt. I would like to unlock my Luks encrypted system at boot with a key file on a usb thumb drive. I have found what looks to be a step by step tutorial but being a n00b i still had some questions. Here is the link to said tutorial https://www.arminpech.de/2018/11/18/...by-an-usb-key/ and I will follow with a section of said tutorial in which i could use some clarification.

in the following, do i include the brackets surrounding USB_DEVICE and LUKS_MAPPER_NAME when entering in the correct names or do i remove/delete the brackets? Thanks.

Format your USB device and create a filesystem on it
# WARNING: Existing data on your USB device will be erased!!!
fdisk ${USB_DEVICE} <<EOF
o
n
p
1

+64M
w
EOF


mkfs.ext4 ${USB_DEVICE}1
mkdir /root/usbkey-${LUKS_MAPPER_NAME}
mount ${USB_DEVICE}1 /root/usbkey-${LUKS_MAPPER_NAME}