Tiger forgot my File Vault master??

A while back I tried File Vault, and as such set a master password. Due to some quirkiness, I turned File Vault off. Since I turned FV off, I wanted to change the master password to something easy just in case I decide to enable it again, and I don't want to forget my stronger password.
However, it seems that Tiger forgot my password! When trying to change the MP, I put in what I'm 99% sure is the right password, yet it is not accepted. Has anyone else had this issue? It's possible that I actually am not entering it properly, but if other people have the problem, then I know I'm not crazy.
Thanks!

Well, if you are not 100% sure about your master password, I'd say there is a good chance you aren't entering it correctly. The other outside chance is that the FileVault System Preferences have become corrupt.

Similar Messages

Reset Forgotten File Vault Master Password

Is there any way to reset the file vault master password?
I must have set it about 5 years ago, and the migration tool has moved it to my new machine. I have completely forgotten, and the hint I left myself has me even more baffled.
I remember all the user/admin accounts, just not the file vault one.
Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks

The FileVault Master Password is stored in the
FileVault Master keychain. This keychain is located
in /Library/Keychains next to the FileVault
Master X.509 certificate and System Keychain.
You don't have to delete these files to reset the
FileVault Master Password, just move the FileVault
Master Keychain and companion FileVault Master
certificate to another folder. When you open System
Preferences, it will behave as though you never set a
FileVault Master Password, and will allow you to set
a new one.
My daughter set me up as a user on her computer that I bought for her when she was 18 with limited access to use only the internet. She has got married and moved to New York in March 2007. She says she can't remember her master password and I am unable to use the MAC to its full without her administrator master password. I have no access to system prefernces when I click on File either.

Forgot Master Password, no acct File Vault: How to get rid of Mst Password?

Hi -
I am embarrassed, mortified, and humbled about having to post this because it's not about 'someone I know' but about something careless that I did.
This morning, I set up a second account with File Vault on my MBA (Late 2010) to keep sensitive files in it. While setting it up, I set a Master Password which I hadn't enabled before this morning. I used the password generator and used one that I dutifully copied on the clipboard with the intention of IMMEDIATELY copying it into my 1Password app. Then I set up the second account with File Vault.
Well, of course, something distracted me, I habitually copied something else on the clipboard, and I lost the Master Password from my clipboard. (I know, I've been kicking myself ever since...)
Here's my question: The Master Password is not protecting any content in File Vault and I would like to disable the forgotten Master Password and set up one that I really will remember (at least, that's the plan!). How can I do this?
I deleted the new account and I have only one other which is the primary administrator account that is not protected by File Vault. Thanks in advance for any help on this!
(possibly similar to this parallel topic: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13321714&#13321714)

See this thread:
*How to reset FileVault master password*
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5822772
As explained there, and for obvious security reasons, a new master password created in this fashion way will not unlock any pre-existing FileVault accounts. So resetting the master password is only useful after you have turned off FileVault in all existing accounts, as is true in your case.

I forgot to turn file vault off, Recovery HD is locked

I recently erased Macintosh HD to reinstall ML, however, when I tried to install ML, it says the recovery HD is locked. I member encrypting the HD using Filevault. I still have the recovery keys but I erased the macintosh HD without turning file vault off
can I unlock the recovery HD using file vault recovery keys or should I kiss the macintosh HD goodbye??

Try this
So while in Recovery Mode, open Terminal , locate the logical UUID (example: 111111-2222-3333-444444444444 ) of the disk to unlock.
"diskutil coreStorage list" will give you the UUID. After that you can unlock the drive with:
"diskutil coreStorage unlockVolume <YOUR_UUID>"
You will be asked for the Filevault password and yes, this prompt will accept your passwd if you type it right, at least you can test and see what you type in terminal while not in the password prompt.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3348646?start=0&tstart=0

Recovering File Vault Data from Back-up

Hello wonderful Apple people:
My hard disk crashed this weekend and I had it replaced (same day service) at the Apple store. I had my computer backed-up on a Maxtor External Hard Drive using their Retrospect software. I thought I was all set, however...
I'm having trouble restoring my data due to what I think are security issues. I had File Vault turned on for my computer (and old hard drive). I have not been able to restore using Retrospect because it wants the back-up sets that were on the old harddrive and doesn't seem to be able to rebuild them. I was able to mount the back-up and transfer all of the data, however I could not log-in with my old user name. I put my password in and it shook it's head at me, until I got to the master password, then it would let me change the password and log in to the abysmal Blue Screen. My back-up is also bootable and when I try to login there, it doens't recognize my password, I reset the password and I get the darned Blue Screen. I can see the files on the External drive and on the new hard drive, but... no accress
I reset my computer in safe mode and established a new user. Now I can log in, use all the applications, but not access any files. The files are locked under the old user name and when I log in under the old user name I get the Blue Screen. I don't know if it is File Vault issue or a missing file somewhere.
The sad story here is that my dissertation is due in three weeks. I have most of what I need backed up in other places, but my actual data is in the files that I can't access.
Oh, one other thing to take into consideration...my combo drive doesn't work so using the Install disk is not an option.
Any help would be appreciated. I havent found this issue yet on the boards.
PowerBook G4, 12 Mac OS X (10.4)

Since you're backing up to an external drive...IMHO Retrospect is overkill. Retrospect's strength is that you can make multiple copies of a file. In other words, you can recover a version of a file a few changes back. You can make these backups across sets of backup media, so that only your most recent backup needs to be on-site. Also, you can easily automate backups. If you don't need multiple copies of files, and you're not storing backup media off-site, and you can survive without automation, diskutility can clone your HD as often as you need/remember to do it. SuperDuper can aotomate this. Again. Retrospect is a good app, but it requires careful planning and implementation.
So there's my rant.l Clone your HD to an external as often as you need/remember and but a second external to alternate backups and keep off-site if that's necessary or desired for your particular situation. Use retrospect if you need its extra functionality.
Glad you had a good backup to rely on.
Jeff

File Vault Stripping Permissions

(Note: this is reposted here at the suggestion of a sysadmin on the Tiger group).
I've written a C++ application that will be used by both Windows and OSX clients. The app is simple and console based and is distributed as a simple binary file, compiled separately for Windows and as a Universal OSX application. I edit with AquaEmacs and compile from within using a simple makefile. I don't think any of this is relevant, but it might so I share it.
I've sent the file to one of my OSX testers who happens to be using an Intel Mac (MacBook) running OSX 10.4.10. The file is named "Sartain" and I send it as a file attachment to an email, not it .dmg format. Just for insurance, I use chmod to set file permissions to universal r,w,x (sudo chmod 777 Sartain). With this background, here is the problem I'm trying to sort out.
My tester seems to receive this file as "Sartain." (note the period). Moreover, when he tries to execute the file (./Sartain) from his home directory, he gets "permission denied". I had him check permissions and the received file has stripped off all the write and execute permissions, leaving him only with universal "read" permission. The only way he can run the program is to use chmod to reset permissions.
He is not a Mac sophisticate and so I don't really know what to have him check. He reports that he DOES NOT use virus protection on the machine but he has FILE VAULT turned on. This is the only thing I can think of that would produce this problem. I've scanned the net widely but cannot find conclusive evidence that FILE VAULT changes permissions on received files, but I'm stumped where else to look. He uses a Novell email client and I suppose that his mail server could be stripping off the permissions, but I'd like to rule out FILE VAULT before having to phone his sysadmins to find out what the default setting is on their mail server.
Any thoughts here would be welcome. Thanks for your help.

I don't think this problem has anything to do with File Vault or a virus or anything else on the recipients machine. Rather it's due to trying to send the raw executable file through the e-mail system. File permissions are not contained within the file and hence would not be transferred when you attached the file to an e-mail message.
The addition of the "." (period) on the end of the attachment name may also be a side effect of sending through the mail system.
I think you'd have better luck putting the file in a disk image and sending the .dmg file. The file should definitely keep it's permissions within the dmg and I think it will also retain them once the recipient drags the file out of the dmg.
Steve

File Vault issues

When we try to log in we receive a message that says " we cannot log in because file vault will not allow it, does anyone have a clue what this means?

Did you activate FileVault on your machine? You would have done so in System Preferences -> Security -> Filevault and entered a master password.
Here are some Apple help articles about Filevault:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8727.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8739.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8738.html
If you have it turned on, follow the directions in the last article on how to turn it off.

Locked out of user after turning off file vault

I was told i had permission issues. I couldn't do simple things like copying files to desktop. Someone told me to turn off file vault. Did it. Now i can't access user at all. Keep getting same message,"...cannot access user at this time..." accompanied by an applications icon. All i really want from that user are my music and photos. Please help, my wife is going to kill me if i lose baby photos.

An update that may help you: I went to my Backups (created in Tiger before I switched) and restored some things from there. Unfortunately it wouldn't give me back everything (iPhoto Library all gone), but I did restore an older iTunes Library and some of my e-mails.
Were you using Backup before you lost everything?

What is File Vault?

HI! when i first got my ibook i saw that file vault protected my files and decided i should use it...Now, im not sure how filevault really operates or how it protects me and my files. Im the only user on my laptop and im a student. So... should i even have filevault enabled at all? Basically i just want to know how filevault works and if i need it on or not. Thanks in Advance!
-Seth

Be aware that FileVault, even though it runs transparently, does eat up extra CPU cycles, and does slow down your computer to a degree. It is up to the individual to determine if they require that much security.
From the Help files:
Mac OS X includes FileVault, which allows you to encrypt the information in your home folder. FileVault creates a separate volume for your home folder and encrypts the contents of it. The data in your home folder is encoded and your information is secure if your computer is lost or stolen. FileVault uses the latest government-approved encryption standard, the Advanced Encryption Standard with 128-bit keys (AES-128).
When you turn on FileVault, you also set up a master password for the computer that you or an administrator can use if you forget your regular login password.
WARNING: If you turn on FileVault and then forget both your login password and your master password, you will not be able to log in to your account and your data will be lost forever.
If the information on your computer is of a sensitive nature, you should consider using FileVault. For example, if you carry all your company's financial data on your PowerBook, losing your PowerBook could allow someone else access to sensitive data that might hurt your business. If you are logged out of your account when your PowerBook is lost, and FileVault is turned on, your information is safe.
Since you home folder is encrypted, some tasks that normally access your home folder may be prevented, for example: backup utilities may see your home folder as one folder that's always changing, and this could slow down your backup. Also, if you're not logged in to your computer, other users will not have access to shared folders in your home folder

Time Machine/File Vault

I'm using OS 10.5.1 with File Vault active.
Is the TIme Machine back-up on the external drive secured with File Vault??

+Thanks. I confess I do not know how to tell the difference between GUID and Apple Partition Map. I see that the drive has Master Boot Record scheme- is that related? I have tried another hard drive with the same results. Both are Mac OS Extended (Journaled)format.+
If a partition shows up formatted as Master Boot Record it can't also be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Do you have more than one partition on your Time Machine disk? If that is the case the partitions may be formatted differently and the partition you are using for Time Machine must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
If you only have one partition and it is formatted with Master Boot Record, Time Machine will not work properly. You can see what partition scheme you are using for your Time Machine disk and how the partitions are formatted in Disk Utility. Launch Launch Disk Utility from the dock or from the Applications > Utilities folder. Click on the upper icon for your Time Machine disk in the left window and the partition type will show on the bottom of the Disk Utility window. It should be GUID for Intel Macs and Apple Partition Map for PPC Macs.
Click on the indented icon(s) below upper Time Machine icon. That will show the formatting for each partition. If it says Master Boot Record for the partition you are using for Time Machine you will have to repartition and reformat the disk to get rid of it. That will erase the disk so copy any files you need first. Then follow the directions in this article.

File Vault: You don't have permission to access /~anybody/ on this server.

I tried it on several machines without success:
403 Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /~anybody/ on this server.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at localhost.local Port 80
I can reach the main site on the computer but not the user site if user was setup with File Fault.
I did control permissions and tried this issue on other machines with clean installed 10.4.x
:::[Wed Apr 4 13:19:17 2007] [error] [client 192.168.0.10] (13)Permission denied: access to /~anybody/ failed because search permissions are missing on a component of the path:::
NO SOLUTION. IS THIS A BUG?

If I log in to a FileVault user's account, change the group of that user's home folder to "www" and allow group "---x" permissions, it is possible, from another account, to access "http://127.0.0.1/~filevaultuser". I'm not in a situation where I can test access from a different machine, and my system is PPC, not Intel, but I don't think that should matter. I'm not sure why it is not working for you.
Note that for it to work requires that the user is logged in (otherwise, because of how FileVault works, the "~/Sites" folder doesn't exist), and the permissions along the path "/Users/filevaultuser/Sites" have to allow "www" access. If the user is not logged in, access may fail for a couple of reasons. First, because the "Shared" folder doesn't exist - the home folder is encrypted - leading to a 404 error. Second, the permissions of "/Users/filevaultuser" may be "drwx------" by default (access only for the owner), leading to a permissions error.
It might help to recall that when a FileVault user's home folder is stored in an encrypted disk image "/Users/filevaultuser/filevaultuser.sparseimage", and when they log in, "/Users/filevaultuser" is moved to "/Users/.filevaultuser", and "/Users/.filevaultuser/filevaultuser.sparseimage" is mounted at "/Users/filevaultuser". I.e. the path "/Users/filevaultuser" refers to two different folders depending on whether or not the user is logged in.
..."it writes that if I'm looged in as the user which is using File Vault it should work - but it doesn't."...
I think that statement refers to 10.3 - lower in the article, it says that for Tiger, the "Public" folder won't be visible after logging in. It could also be referring to some changes made to personal file sharing that were made between 10.3 and 10.4, rather than a filevault specific issue.
Just to reiterate, I don't think enabling web sharing for a user that needs the security of FileVault is really a good idea. It might be better to give that user a second non-FileVault account, where they can place their materials. That way, the homepage would be available even if they are logged out.

Trying to turn off File Vault

I installed Tiger a few weeks ago. My computer says it can't find a video input from my dv camera. I thought it may be due to my Security system so I thought I'd try to turn off File Vault. When I tried to turn it off, it says there is not enough room in my hard disk to do it. It says "Turning off FileVault requires an additional 4084.6 GB of free disk space to create an unencrypted copy of the home folder. Try emptying the Trash or deleting files you don't need."
I have my storage drives partitioned but between all of them I have nearly 500 gb of space not used.
1. I'm not exactly sure what a home folder is?
2. There's no way I can find that many files to delete
3. I'm not even sure File Vault would be a potential problem for issue with the camera link.
Thoughts as to what I need to do would be appreciated.

My question was answered through another question I had which was also answered.

Can't enable File Vault

Decided to try out Leopard on an external USB drive before overwriting Tiger.
Clean installation on an external USB drive(Intel Macbook) boots fine.
File Vault tells me I cannot enable as the Home Folder is not Mac OS Extended Journalled when it is - it's actually Journalled case-sensitive - should that matter?
Also tried installing a demo of Adobe Dreamweaver and that gives me an error of incompatible volume format.
Is this a known bug with external USB boots?
Another thing I can;t do is partition it to try out BootCamp.
Any ideas?
AC

I think the problem with a case-sensitive file system is that not all software vendors make Unix compatible products. If you have two files with the same name save the case, abc.txt and Abc.txt, some programs may crash because they "see" two "identical" files.
Until all the world agrees on case-sensitive names, then I would not recommend using such a file system. And as long as we have Winders, that won't happen.
In fact, I suspect some of the problems may well be from MS Office products running on BSD, but that's only a surmise. Then there is the networking problem when "talking" to a file system that is not case-sensitive.
I have read enough pro and con to consider that the world is not yet ready for case-sensitive file systems, especially on computers with dual-boot capability and that can run BSD and GUI apps at the same time.
Yes, FV and TM do not really conflict. It's the way FV encrypts your folders. It makes each folder look like a single large file, so TM cannot do anything with it but save it as a unit. If TM could look into the folder that would mean the encryption is useless, right?
Of course, you can exclude that folder from TM and back it up separately on your own.
The alternative would be for FV to encrypt each and every file separately, but that would probably slow down the processing more than doing in in one big chunk.
Also when using FV, TM only backs up after you log out, for obvious reasons (in retrospect), so nothing happens until you do log out, and then you can't turn the box off until TM does its thing.

File Vault + Mac Mini

Hi,
I really want to make the most of my mac and take advantage of all the great features that it boasts. One of these features is "File Vault". I remember seeing a quick review of this in the OS X Panther video before Tiger started shipping and it really interested me. I would like to know whether allowing File Vault to encrypt my files will use up memory and processing power? It must use some extra ram surely? Slowing things down a little as it encrypts and decrypts files as they open and close? Do any of you use it and is it worth the while?
Thanks in advance for any help / support in this case.
Regards
-Pos

My original post :
Pos, File Vault will encrypt your entire Home folder, and will therefore have an impact on performance when dealing with any file located in your Home folder.
If you think you have some files that need to be encrypted, you can always use Disk Utility to create an encrypted Disk Image, and use it to store those files ...
Doug's post :
> If you think you have some files that need to be encrypted, you can always use Disk Utility to create an encrypted Disk Image, and use it to store those files...
In fact, this is exactly what File Vault does to your entire home folder.
-Doug
Thanks Doug
Mac mini | 1.25 Ghz G4 | 1 GB RAM | 40 GB HDD | AirPort Extreme Mac OS X (10.4.3) External 250 GB LaCie HDD | LaCie FW DVD-RW DL 16x | 20 GB iPod w/Color Display

How Secure is File Vault?

I have to take my iMac in for servicing and am concerned about securing my data from prying eyes. I'm considering using file vault to encrypt my home folder but don't know if it will also encrypt my Keychain (I have 90+ passwords stored in the Keychain). Any thoughts or ideas are welcome.
Mark

The last time I had a Mac in for servicing, I made a bootable clone (of my internal drive) onto an external hard drive, using Carbon Copy Cloner. Then I restarted from the external and did a +zero out data+ erase on the internal drive, followed by a fresh install of Tiger.
When I got it back I restarted from the external and cloned it back to the internal drive. I thought it was far simpler than worrying about security.

Tiger forgot my File Vault master??

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