Encrypted Disk Image and Backup

If one uses Apple’s Disk Utility to create an encrypted disk image, what happens when SuperDuper, Time Machine, or any other backup utility is running while the (unencrypted) image is mounted on the desktop?
Are both the encrypted image and the unencrypted data transferred to the backup device? Or is just the secure encrypted data copied to the destination?
Nothing urgent on this, just curious. Thank you!

I've played around with this a little. As best I can tell, when cloning an entire HD volume both CCC and SuperDuper will always copy an image file (.dmg, .sparsebundle, etc) that resides that on that HD, whether or not that file's disk image is mounted at the time. However the contents of the mounted disk image volume will not be copied separately, and so If the disk image is encrypted, no unencrypted content will get transferred this way. However as mentioned in the SuperDuper link above, it's better to unmount the image in any event, in order to ensure that the underlying .dmg or .sparsebundle file gets copied faithfully.
If you want to copy the contents of a mounted disk image with CCC or SuperDuper, you can do so as a completely separate procedure from copying the HD. If you first mount the image (giving a password if it was encrypted), that mounted image will appear as an independent volume in the "source list" of CCC or SuperDuper, and you can choose that volume as a source for the copy procedure. You would need to designate a different target volume as well, so as not to overwrite your HD clone. If the disk image was encrypted and you deliberately copy its mounted image separately in this fashion, the resulting files on the target will not be encrypted.

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Disk Image and Backups

I need an expert response here... I need it to be objective as possible to the goal that I am trying to accomplish and that is the following. I want to be able to create a system backup wherever I am in the world in as short a period of time without the install DVD's. What is the best way?
For example can I create a disk image of my hard drive using Disk Utility? If so, and I encounter a catastrophic failure, and I have that disk image on DVD or a external FireWire drive could I just reload that image and then be back up and running? If that is true, what would be the process using Disk Utility to create that image and the process to restore it as well? Please provide as detailed info as possible about the process?
Now I do regular backups using Time Machine. But does Time Machine afford me the same opportunity as a disk image? For example if I encounter a failure, can the external drive that I am using for Time Machine create a complete system restore without the install DVD? Or is the disk image the only way?
I do understand that with the disk image I would always have to be updating it to make sure I have the latest files. However, as it stands right now, I have all essential files that I would need already on my hard drive ready for the disk image if that is the way to go. All my other files would be on my iDisk or external Hard Drive. I appreciate anyone who can shed some light here.
I did some digging on the support.apple.com site and I also wondered will I always need the install DVD to get to Disk Utility or is there another way with the DVD?
Mike
Message was edited by: Michael710
Message was edited by: Michael710

Michael710 wrote:
I did some digging on the support.apple.com site and I also wondered will I always need the install DVD to get to Disk Utility or is there another way with the DVD?
What you will always need to run Disk Utility is:
1. A functioning OS
2. A copy of Disk Utility on accessible media
Put another way, Disk Utility is an application. No application can stand alone -- they all depend on an operating system being up & running to supply the essential services they need.
This means you can't just "reload" an image without first booting into a working OS from some source. This could be the installer DVD, a flash drive with the OS installed on it, or an external drive. It can't be the internal drive if it has problems.
Since you have to have a separate source for both the OS & Disk Utility, you might as well consider the clone option already mentioned. The downside is that this requires a large enough external drive to hold everything, so a cheap flash drive probably won't suffice. The upside is you don't have to image or restore anything -- just boot from the clone & keep working, repairing/restoring the internal drive whenever it is convenient.

Encrypted Disk Images and ApplescriptObjc

Hi all!
Im a bit of an applescript newb but i can find my way around most things. Ive been working on an applescriptobjc project in the new xcode 3.2 in snow leopard and I cant for the life of me get it to mount an encrypted .dmg file.
My script is as follows:
on mountButton_(sender)
set filePath to (POSIX path of (choose file with prompt "Select a file to use" of type {"DMG"}))
tell current application to do shell script ("hdiutil mount \"" & ¬
POSIX path of (filePath as string) & "\"")
end mountButton_
This works for non encrypted files but not encrypted ones. The weird thing is this script works perfectly fine in applescript editor but not in my Xcode compiled project.
Anyone have any ideas?
Cheers

Solved it!! Through sheer serendipity I stumbled across the solution!
Turns out the shell script needed an & on the end. No idea why.
ie.
tell current application to do shell script ("hdiutil mount \"" & ¬
POSIX path of (filePath as string) & "\"&")
Im not all that familiar with shell scripts. Is there anyone who can tell me what I've actually done by including the & on the end? Just for future reference.
Cheers

HT1578 Labels (Mavericks) not working in encrypted disk image?

I created an encrypted disk image with Disk Utility.
I placed a file in the opened encrypted disk image, and labeled it with "test".
If I open a finder window and look for files labelled "test" the file doesn't appear.
This message is placed under the wrong OS, because it is not possible to choose Mevericks from the popup list!!!!

Where I used the word label I did mean tag

Removing an encrypted disk image

A while ago, I created a 7gb encrypted read/write disk image and put some files in it. Now, recently, I removed the files in the encrypted disk image and copied them back into the regular HD. I erased the mounted disk image and now says it's back to 7gb.
How do I remove the disk image? It's still there in my documents folder. How do I melt it back into the HD space? I can remove it from the side bar on the disk utility page but it's still on my HD and I can still mount it to the finder. I enter my password and it mounts.
I want to get rid of that disk partition as I don't use it anymore. What do I do? Is it there forever and am I stuck with it?
Thanks in advance for anybody that can help me with this.

Niel,
You know I actually tried that before but the trash was hanging and hanging. I have it set to empty securely and I know it takes longer for secure empty but it was really long.
I'll try it again but is that normal? Does the encryption have anything to do with it?
Thanks for the help, hope this time it works.

Encrypted disk image mounting

I'm trying to find a way to make an AppleScript that will mount an encrypted disk image and enter the password for it automatically. I can make it open all right, but I can't figure out how to make it enter the password (the 'with password' command doesn't seem to work, I'm assuming it only works on remote volumes?).
Any help would be appreciated.

Something like this should work:
<pre>
set myResult to display dialog "Enter password:" default answer "" with hidden answer
set thePW to text returned of myResult
set cmd to "echo -n \"" & thePW & "\" | hdiutil attach /path/to/encrypted/disk/image.dmg -stdinpass"
do shell script cmd
</pre>
There are some security concerns with passing a command string to "do shell script" that contains your password. If other users log on to your machine they could see your password if they happened to be watching the process list at just the right time.
Steve

Encrypted disk image from ****

So i made an encrypted disk image and forgot the password.
The disk image:
Size: 100 mb
Format: Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)
Encryption: 25-bit AES
Partition: Single partition-Apple partition map
..and no, i didnt save the password on my keychain
...(you can stop laughing now :P )
I´ve been in contact with Apple Care and we spent about 3 hours trying loads of things with no luck.
I know im more or less f*ed, but i know there is a lot of smart ppl on this forum.
If anyone has idea, no matter how crazy, im willing to try it.

Hi Worm76;
My suggestion is forget about what was in the encrypted disk image. Write it off as lost.
It would take someone like the NSA to get it back for you and I doubt very much that you have anything in there to interest them.
Allan

Problem creating encrypted disk image

I have just moved from an Aluminium PB G4 with 10.3.9, on which I successfully created encrypted disk images and sparse images.
I now want to do the same on a brand new WD My Book attached to the new Macbook Pro. I open Disk Utility and click New Image. But when I do so, there are fewer options than there are on the old machine. I only have
Save As
Where
Image Format
Encryption
No option for specifying size, no sparse option.
Also, if I try and create a dmg on the My Book, I get 'Unable to create "myfilename.dmg". (Invalid argument)'
Any suggestions? Thanks

V.K.'s suggestion worked. Thank you. But now I've found that I get the full set of options in Disk Utility too. Baffled.
In the week I've been using my new Macbook Pro, I seem to be getting eerily similar experiences, i.e. apps don't work right, then I quit and next time they behave themselves. Yes, I know it sounds weird.
Is this an appropriate place for me to ask further questions. Namely, what's the best place to find out about 1. read/write v. sparse disk v. sparse bundle? 2. partitions - should I used them, whatever they are? and 3. why are the bigger disk images called CDs and DVDs? If I want a passworded place to put files on my external drive, bigger than 500MB, is there any reason not to use one of the CD/DVD size options?
Thanks

Time Machine Backups of Encrypted Disk Images, Part 2

Hi:
If Time Machine is backing up a hard drive that contains a subset encrypted disk image as part of its contents, and this encrypted disk image is mounted (in an unencrypted state) where the enclosed data has been changed/manipulated in any fashion, what and when does Time Machine backup?
In other words, does the data in the encrypted disk image only change when the encrypted disk image is unmounted? Or is it somehow backed up real time even when the encrypted disk image is mounted on the desktop in an unencrypted state while Time Machine is working?
Sorry I can't explain this very well, but hopefully the gist is clear.
Thanks!
(OS 10.8.2)

Time Machine doesn't back up a disk image file while it's mounted, whether encrypted or not.

My Automator script to backup files to encrypted disk image

Hi there. I have a question regarding Automator and Encrypted disk images. I've put together a workflow that grabs files in my home folder. My home folder is utilizing FileVault. I'm grabbing things like my iphoto library, documents folder and such. On an external usb drive I've created an encrypted disk image about 100GB. My goal is for the automator action to "successfully" mount > copy > unmount the encrypted image.
As of right now, the script works, but gives an error at the end of the copy, not allowing a successful unmount of the dmg. Is there something I'm doing wrong? I browsed through all the files after copying and they are all there, the folder sizes match up 100%.
I guess I could just use a program that does this, but, I find it much easier clicking on a shortcut in my dock to run the script and go away for 10 - 15 mins.
If it would help to view the script, let me know and we'll work something out.
Thanks

The popup box says:
The action "Copy Finder Items" encountered an error. Check the action's properties and try running the workflow again.
And the Automator workflow log says:
Can't read directory contents: /Volumes/Backup
But as I said, clearly it works and reads/writes to the encrypted dmg because all the files are there. What I do is just select all the folders inside the drive first, and delete/empty the trash first before running the action. This is the second step once I know this is working. So that I don't have to manually delete them everytime before running the script.
So to answer your question, the drive is empty, and the dmg is empty, allowable for a maximum 100GB of storage.
I think it might be something to do with copying files to an encrypted disk image, but, I can't find any help anywhere on this.
Thanks

Even though I have LCD font smoothing disabled, Mountain Lion still uses it in PDF views, Safari's location bar, Mail's message view, and the dialogs for mounting encrypted disk images.

Even though I have LCD font smoothing disabled, Mountain Lion still uses it in PDF views, Safari’s location bar, Mail’s message view, and the dialogs for mounting encrypted disk images. Is there any solution to this problem? Also diabled the Smoothing in the SystemPrefs and also via Terminal. Font smoothing is still there. Very annoying, especially in PDF attachments in Apple Mail.

Try feeding Safari a user-defined CSS file with font-smoothing tweaks (including none). The filename and its filesystem location are arbitrary. Use your favorite coding editor.
Safari > Preferences > Advanced > Style Sheet:
Here is an example with all elements uncommented. Pick the one that works best for your Safari viewing and comment out the others:
Preview. Try Preview > Preferences > PDF > Smooth text and line art (uncheck)

Create encrypted disk image with OS install disk utility.

I thought to make a full backup of Macintosh HD, and followed instructions in /kb/ht1553. However, every time I tried to creae an encrypted disk image, it barfed with "Failed - User interaction required". I assume it needed the encryption password, but for some reason was unable to display a prompt for this. Anyone know how to fix this? Thanks, Stephen.

Create an encrypted sparse disk image instead of from folder, mount it, and then drag & drop your files into ii.

Creating an Encrypted Disk Image on an External (USB) Drive

I have an external 600 GB drive (2x 300 GB SATA 3.5" disks in a Thecus N2050 RAID0 external enclosure connected to iMac by USB2) onto which I would like to backup a large amount of data (500 GB).
I store this external drive away from my home (in the office) and since I cannot guarantee physically locking away the drive I would like to logically lock the drive by placing all the backup data into an encrypted disk image created on that volume.
I have tried creating an encrypted disk image on my USB volume in Disk Utility (Apple's instructions here) but I experience a number of issues not documented in the Apple article:
1) I am not presented with a drop-down option for the size of the disk image.
2) When I go ahead and try to creat the image I am told that the creation was impossible "file or folder does not exist".
Is it possible to create disk images on USB volumes (I cannot create such a large disk image on my iMac HDD as I do not have sufficient space).
thanks in advance
Raf

I realised that in Disk Utility you must not have any of your mounted drives highlighted in the left hand pane.

Encrypted Disk Image creation slow?

I just got a new MBP with Leopard. I have created a number of encrypted disk images in the past using Tiger and a MBP and have not had any trouble. This weekend I tried a few times to create a 50 gig encrypted disk image (128 AES) on an external drive and after going through the process of setting it up and waiting for it to be created, (and watching the progress bar as it was being created), after about 45 minutes NO progress was showing on the progress bar. I ended up having to cancel the creation a few times because I thought something was going wrong. I’m not sure if there is a problem creating the disk image, or leopard is slow, or what.
Does anyone know how long, on average, it would take to create an encrypted disk image of this size using leopard? I just want to know if there is a problem doing this on my MBP. Thanks for the help.

A regular 50 GB disk image takes 50GB of space, no matter if it is full of files or empty.
A 50 GB sparse disk image only takes up the amount of space equivalent to that of its enclosed files. So if the 50GB sparse image only has 1 GB of files inside, the image won't be much bigger than 1GB.
A sparse bundle is similar to a sparse image, but instead of a single file it is a folder package with many, many enclosed files called bands. A new file added to the sparse bundle will tend to modify only a few bands. This makes incremental backups of a sparse bundle more efficient because only the changed bands need to be backed up again. Any change to a sparse or regular disk image will mean that the entire image will need to be backed up again.
If you regularly add/remove files to a disk image, and you intend to back up that disk image with Time Machine, a sparse bundle is definitely the way to go. The other types will fill up your TM volume very quickly.

Encrypted disk image creation very slow-

I just got a new MBP with Leopard. I have created a number of encrypted disk images in the past using Tiger and a MBP and have not had any trouble. This weekend I tried a few times to create a 50 gig encrypted disk image (128 AES) on an external drive and after going through the process of setting it up and waiting for it to be created, (and watching the progress bar as it was being created), after about 45 minutes NO progress was showing on the progress bar. I ended up having to cancel the creation a few times because I thought something was going wrong. I’m not sure if there is a problem creating the disk image, or leopard is slow, or what.
Does anyone know how long, on average, it would take to create an encrypted disk image of this size using leopard? I just want to know if there is a problem doing this on my MBP. Thanks for the help.

A regular 50 GB disk image takes 50GB of space, no matter if it is full of files or empty.
A 50 GB sparse disk image only takes up the amount of space equivalent to that of its enclosed files. So if the 50GB sparse image only has 1 GB of files inside, the image won't be much bigger than 1GB.
A sparse bundle is similar to a sparse image, but instead of a single file it is a folder package with many, many enclosed files called bands. A new file added to the sparse bundle will tend to modify only a few bands. This makes incremental backups of a sparse bundle more efficient because only the changed bands need to be backed up again. Any change to a sparse or regular disk image will mean that the entire image will need to be backed up again.
If you regularly add/remove files to a disk image, and you intend to back up that disk image with Time Machine, a sparse bundle is definitely the way to go. The other types will fill up your TM volume very quickly.

Encrypted Disk Image and Backup

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