Mac Neophyte Tips: FileVault on Removable Drives Date: 2008-05-01 11:42:55
I'll admit it: I'm a total Mac noob. Though I've owned Apple computers since 1999, I've only recently started to use the platform for anything but web browsing. Since FileVault was invented I've always been a little irked about the fact that only your home folder is encrypted. At the time, my search might not have been extensive, but all the forums seemed to say about this was: "wait till TrueCrypt comes to the Mac". Now, TrueCrypt might be a moderately handy tool for Windows, but the Mac Version is an absolute nightmare.
I'm sure most people have known about the solution for ages, but I only recently found out: when you create one of those disk image files, OS X lets you create an encrypted filesystem that has pretty much the same properties as a FileVault store. I feel really stupid for having taken so long to find out. But I'm gonna post this in case there are other people like me, still running around and wondering how to 'vault their drives.
1. open Disk Utility
2. click "New Image"
3. enter size and select 256AES encryption from the list
4. choose "sparse disk image" or "sparse bundle disk image"
5. click "Create"
6. Profit! ...erm I mean: done!
In case you're wondering what the "sparse bundle" is: it's a format that has been added with Leopard. The normal sparse image is a single file that grows as the filesystem contained in it gets filled. This means the recovery of unused space is complicated and time consuming. The sparse bundle, however, consists of a collection of fragments that can be handled more efficiently be the OS. The bundle is a directory that contains some meta info and the actual filesystem data in so-called bands. Here's what it looks like:
Neat, isn't it?
I'm sure most people have known about the solution for ages, but I only recently found out: when you create one of those disk image files, OS X lets you create an encrypted filesystem that has pretty much the same properties as a FileVault store. I feel really stupid for having taken so long to find out. But I'm gonna post this in case there are other people like me, still running around and wondering how to 'vault their drives.
1. open Disk Utility
2. click "New Image"
3. enter size and select 256AES encryption from the list
4. choose "sparse disk image" or "sparse bundle disk image"
5. click "Create"
6. Profit! ...erm I mean: done!
In case you're wondering what the "sparse bundle" is: it's a format that has been added with Leopard. The normal sparse image is a single file that grows as the filesystem contained in it gets filled. This means the recovery of unused space is complicated and time consuming. The sparse bundle, however, consists of a collection of fragments that can be handled more efficiently be the OS. The bundle is a directory that contains some meta info and the actual filesystem data in so-called bands. Here's what it looks like:
-rw-r--r-- 1 udo staff 499 May 1 20:31 Info.bckup
-rw-r--r-- 1 udo staff 499 May 1 20:31 Info.plist
drwxr-xr-x 5725 udo staff 194650 May 1 21:04 bands
-rw-r--r-- 1 udo staff 122880 May 1 20:31 token
Neat, isn't it?
Comments
EMSPV says
(2008-05-11 06:13:00)
Nice to read that efficient FS encryption has finally come to OSX, too. It's been around in Linux for... ages or so. :)
admin says
(2008-05-27 05:18:17)
I guess if you really wanted you could have used an encrypted loop device thingy all along since OS X 10.0, but I'd leave that sort of nightmare to you Linux people :-P
The encrypted disc image has been around for a while, too, but they have this "sparse" mode that allows for easy resizing and maintenance operations...
The encrypted disc image has been around for a while, too, but they have this "sparse" mode that allows for easy resizing and maintenance operations...
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