[FDE] FDE Digest, Vol 20, Issue 10

[Simson Garfinkel]

On May 14, 2008, at 10:53 AM, Carta Diem wrote:

> Simson,
>
> Thanks so much for the helpful information. Could you be more  
> specific how you use File Vault in conjunction with a bootable backup?

Sure. There are two kinds of bootable backups. The first is just using  
carbon copy or something. The second is just making a bootable disk  
and accessing the filevault on the laptop's drive.

If you use carboncopy, make the copy by logging out of your account,  
logging into another account, and doing the copy. This will just make  
the external disk a replicate of your internal disk. The backup is  
bootable. When you log in the .sparsebundle on the external will be  
visible as normal.


On the other hand, if you just have a bootable external disk, or if  
you want to put your disk into target mode, you need to manually mount  
the .sparsevolume file. Mine is stored in /Users/.simsong/ 
simsong.sparsebundle

>
>
> "You can also create an encrypted image on your external bootable  
> drive
> using Disk Utility."
>
> I am not sure what you mean by this.  If FV has already encrypted  
> the contents of my User Folder, then why would I need to encrypt  
> anything else?

Because you might want to have encryption on an external drive that is  
not a home directory. Run Disk Utility, click "New Image," and tell it  
you want to make an Encrypted image and put it on the external drive.  
Make it a 100GB encrypted sparse bundle or sparse volume. Double-click  
to mount it. Have fun.