Creating the perfect USB companion - Safe file storage
Creating the perfect USB companion - Safe file storage
Geschreven door Mark Vletter vrijdag 29 augustus 2008 00:00
| Inhoudsopgave |
|---|
| Creating the perfect USB companion |
| Password storage |
| Browser |
| Password storage |
| FTP |
| Putty |
| Safe file storage |
| Conclusion |
| Alle pagina's |
Safe file storage
Last but not least. File storage. I want one secure folder on my USB key where I can store my files encrypted. I found a cross platform application called Truecrypt. You install the application. Create a storage file and this file can be mounted as a drive. You can decide the size of the secure drive yourself.
Because you don’t want to install Truecrypt on every computer you use it on, you can create a “Travelers Disk”. This means that the program can run itself from the USB key. This does work on Windows, on Apple you’ll have to install the program.
Well this all sound great but there are some problems.
Problems on Apple
You have to manually mount the secure disk using Truecrypt. Once you want to remove the mounted safe disk you can “dismount it” using the eject icon, but that won’t work. It looks like it works but it doesn’t. You won’t be able to dismount the USB key itself either once you mounted the safe drive because it says its still “in use”. You have to manually dismount the disk using Truecrypt. And… the mounting and dismounting is not that fast…
I have been working on a mount/dismount workaround, which you’ll read later.
On Windows
Then Windows. Once you installed the client all works fine on Windows. I wanted Truecrypt to run as a travelers disk as well, but that took some tweaking. I finally managed it writing my own autorun.inf file.
[autorun]
label=MYSTICK
UseAutoPlay=1
action=Mount
open=TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe /q background /lM /c y /m rm /v "Files\Locked"
shell\dismount=&Dismount
shell\dismount\command=TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe /q /d
shell=runtc
shell\runtc=Run TrueCrypt
shell\runtc\command=TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe
This does not automount the drive, but it does give you the options when you right click the USB drive.
Since I use fixed work places, I’ll be installing the application on all workplaces.
The Windows client has an auto mount feature and can start up minimized. Auto mount does not work right on my laptop, but you can create and mount favorite volumes with two clicks and that does work for me. On other workstations I’ll be able to use the autorun.inf file.
One more thing. Windows thought that the data was damaged after I created the secure file using my Apple. It keeps on saying the data is damaged but once checked it says there is nothing wrong. I decided to disable checking.
Automounting on apple
There is a workaround for Apple posted on the TrueCrypt forum that starts TrueCrypt on login, but I want it to start when I plug in the USB key, not on booting my mac. This is what I did.
- mount your drive through TrueCrypt and add them to your favorites
- open "automator"
- select "utilities" and then "run shell script"
- run the auto-mount command and when mounted quit the application:
- /Applications/TrueCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/TrueCrypt --auto-mount=favorites
- /usr/bin/killall TrueCrypt
- save as "application" type
- exit
This scripts starts TrueCrypt, promts you for the password, mounts the secure drive and then quits TrueCrypt.
You can create a second script:
- open "automator"
- select "utilities" and then "run shell script"
- run the dismount command, select the USB drive and Remove it:
- /Applications/TrueCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/TrueCrypt –dismount
- Get finder parts “name USB stick” -> this is not how it’s called in the English version of OSX, but I don’t know the proper translation.
- Eject drive
- save as "application" type
- exit
This script dismounts the secure and the USDB drive.
You can use “Do Something When” (DSW) to start the script when you mount your USB drive.
You can use DSW to start the second script when dismounting the secure drive (you can use the normal eject option from Apple on the secure drive and it will dismount both drives).
More options with a secure drive
If you have a secure drive you can put ALL your there so everything will be secure. I have not tested this, but it sound pretty cool. I don’t know how the backup application will react to all of this, but I’ll test that in the future.
