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Panther FileVault Troubles?

I would prefer that filevault was more of a directory vault istead of a"user" vault. ie not the whole home directory.
More like you can designate a folder to be a vault. Then put the important stuff in there. Kind of like you may do at home or work. You don't live in a vault, the vault is somewhere over there (so to speak)

my $0.02
 
It sounds like alot of people don't actually know what FileVault is or does. Try this and you'll see how it works:

1) enable FileVault and allow it to encrypt your data
2) restart from install CD and reset password
3) Login.

You'll find that all of your files are gone and you have a clean home folder with a Library folder and a disk image of your encrypted home folder.

In order to access that data you need to know either the master password or your ORIGINAL password.

FileVault has nothing to do with your keychain. It is very secure - to government standards. Apple is going a long way to making the US government take a close look at the Mac. However, unless you are completely paranoid, or actually work for a company/agency that requires this level of security, then it's not worth the aggravation.
 
Originally posted by Flynnstone
I would prefer that filevault was more of a directory vault istead of a"user" vault. ie not the whole home directory.
More like you can designate a folder to be a vault. Then put the important stuff in there. Kind of like you may do at home or work. You don't live in a vault, the vault is somewhere over there (so to speak)

my $0.02
Click to expand...

You can. Just create an encrypted disk image. That's how FileVault works. The downside being that one of the most important things to be encrypted is a users email - and you can't drag that to a different directory.
 
Originally posted by voicegy
That's why I didn't get OS X when it first came out, nor Jaguar when it first came out, nor Panther...always wait for the fixes, and let others jump ahead and flail.
Click to expand...

This is why in first place I still with 9.2.2.

How come are you gonna think they are gonna create a problem prof system if is made by the same people that created 9?

The only thing the changed was the interface and some other routing but there will be not difference at the end. I can go back and forward on 9, something I can not do with X.

Today I lost 3 CDs burning on X, something that is very strange on 9.

Let the geeks and the systems amateurs have the hard time with OSX, I will get it in the future when I can find the reability I have with 9 today.
 
User Error!

I'm using it and have no problems at all. I think alot folks don't know how to use it and this and leading to alot folks freaking out by it. Also folks using it and trying to stream audio or video or file edit(common sense) tells you don't use it or turn it off.
I have 5 friends using it and it works fine for them as well. They just turn it off when they are working with graphics and film and such.
 
Yes, FolderVault!

I agree with a previous post that FileVault technology would be more useful to most people if it were able to be deployed to a subset of the user folder.

Who needs their iTunes Library encrypted? Maybe .05%...

Ideal would be an interface like Backup, allowing for mail, documents, or other folders you designate to be encrypted. Knowing nothing of the technical feasibility, this is what I'd want.

Oh, and I do use Filevault, but only with a very limited user account (didn't want to trust it totally yet). I've recorded audio no problem, but not worked with video.

And, eventually, I would LOVE to use FileVault regularly. I am doing educational research, and keep my field notes on my laptop (my only machine), and if it were lost that data could be viewed by others. Not life ending, and I do take some security precautions, but FileVault would give me complete peace of mind. When it's ready for prime time I'll be first in line.
 
I specifically bought Panther for filevault as I have a laptop and wouldn't like for my files to get in the wrong hands if stolen.

That said, the bug struck me. I lost my email accounts and all email that had not been moved to a subfolder. Pain in the butt is what it is. This is my first bad experience with Apple since I switched 4 or so months ago. It's a doozy, however.
 
FileVault

I want to see if I understand FileVault BEFORE I get Panther. Am I correct in that you DO NOT have to use FileVault, or does FileVault automatically start itself? I am planning on buying Panther this Thursday, but do not want too if FileVault is a uncontrolable app.
 
Filevault not on by default

Greg,

When Panther is installed, Filevault is off by default. You would need to manually turn it on (in Security of system preferences) if you wanted to use it.
 
Re: Filevault not on by default

Originally posted by pbooktebo
Greg,

When Panther is installed, Filevault is off by default. You would need to manually turn it on (in Security of system preferences) if you wanted to use it.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
How is Panther working for you?
 
Originally posted by voicegy
That's why I didn't get OS X when it first came out, nor Jaguar when it first came out, nor Panther...always wait for the fixes, and let others jump ahead and flail.
Click to expand...

I have been using Panther since October 24th and have had absolutly no problems with FileVault. I've shut down my computer, restarted it, everything, and all I've gotten is the annoying reclaim data window at shut down and restart. It's annoying because it stops the whole restart or shut down process.

No problems here, loving Panther and FileVault.:cool:
 
Yea. I installed Panther the day it came out and less than a week later I had to do another clean reinstall because filevault had messed up my computer so bad. I lost all my iTunes library info, calendars, and even some notes just before a midterm! I had no idea it was filevault until I connected two and two together. My itunes library kept becoming jibberish when i opened it in textedit to look at what was wrong with it. I then figured it was probably encryption I was looking at. So anyway, I did a clean install again and this time I was careful to leave filevault off.
 
Filevault Issue Parameters

I have done several installs of Panther on several different machines and tried Filevault on all of them. Some notes:

-The problems with Filevault have nothing to do with upgrading vs. clean install

-Filevault losing keychain data does not mean you're locked out of your system, it simply means you have to reset your keychain every time you use it, rendering it completely useless

-It seems that the problems begin to occur when over 50% of the startup volume is consumed by the home folder

-Many of the preference loss issues are random and losing a pref for the dock after one restart does not mean that same pref will be lost if say, the mail prefs are lost after another restart

-"Lost Preferences" does not mean you actually lose data except what data is in the preferences, i.e. losing mail prefs does not mean that your "mailboxes" are lost

-The performance hit you take by enabling Filevault is negligible, even for video and what not, so long as you do large file copy/save/video capture to a directory out side of the home folder (you should probably be doing that on a second hard drive anyway)

That said, all of these problems seem to be the result of certain apps not properly decrypting preference/file data...and it seems that only Apple apps (and a few minor third party apps) are affected. Once all of this gets ironed out, I'll give it another shot on my PowerBook. I don't need a thief having access to my keychain and work-related data.
 
Re: Re: Panther/FileVault and Final Cut Express

Originally posted by Quobobo
Seriously, I don't think it's Apple's fault that you couldn't forsee problems with decrypting and playing/editing video at the same time.
Click to expand...

Agreed - especially with Final Cut Express. It's recommended everywhere in the manual that you use a second hard drive (and therefore, most likely not your home directory) as your storage/editing drive.

iMovie is another matter though. Most consumers aren't doing pro editing with iMovie and wouldn't have had a second thought about encrypting their home directory. These types of things (and the idea of encrypting your iTunes directory) should bring up flags in Filevault asking you if you really want to encrypt this data.
 
I get the feeling Apple over-sold FileVault.

It's handy in some limited circumstances, where a user's entire datastore must be encrypted. However, for the average user -- and even quite advanced purposes -- it strikes me as a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

I've yet to test out what I'm about to propose, but it should work...

As many know, it's essentially harnessing OS X's ability to create encrypted disk images. It's been pointed out up-thread that, for example, email is most probably a key area for encryption.

This is how I remember OS X working: create an encrypted disk image, and create an alias to one of the files/folders on it on your desktop. Now, unmount the disk image. Double-clicking the alias should automatically cause the encrypted image to be mounted, and you'll be prompted for the password.

Now, maybe it's possible to put ~/Library/Mail on an encrypted drive, and still automagically let Mail access via the above behaviour? In which case, maybe it's possible to AppleScript the entire process of setting this up?

I feel a search of macosxhints.com coming on...

Ah. Look here

Now, if Apple created a warm cuddly front-end to this, surely that'd make a lot of people happy?

Dunno... FileVault just struck me as a really risky thing to try on first-release. Actually, anything that does something to everything sets off alarm bells :)

By the way, I would never suggest that a problem with FileVault is indicative of any intrinsic problems with OS X. The implementation of this feature looks like it leaves a bit to be desired, but there's nothing wrong with the technologies involved. I know it sounds like splitting hairs -- and to the user the end result is the same: bad... but I guarantee there's someone in Cupertino with their head buried in Xcode ironing out the bugs.

Heh. Having said all that, I'm sure the only thing that stopped me turning it on myself was the fact my old iMac might melt if I did... :)
 
Clean install.

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
I'm beginning to think I'm the only person w/out FileVault issues. ;)

Quick survey: For those with issues, did you do a clean install or upgrade?
Click to expand...
 
quality control

I wonder how much this all has to do with Avie Tevanian being moved upstairs. Recently there seems to have been a number of major issues which simply should not be happening - is Tevanian's replacement going to get yelled at I wonder?
 
DUDE! Apple has tried to hard to rush out it's latest products. They said panther would be out by the end of the year, and there was no reason it couldn't have jsut come out a month later. I love apple, but seroiously spend a little more time on quality control. Apple latest news has started to sound like M$.

-Just my thoughts
 
This problem bit me. I was using FileVault just fine for awhile. Then one day I tried reencoding some of my music to aac. Basically any file created while the encoding was going on got corrupted. I logged out once after that and lost my preferences. After deciding FileVault was the problem I turned it off, but that fried my keychain. Several apps began to crash a lot after that. I just ended up doing a clean install to fix things.

I prefer FileVault to just an encrypted image since I don't have to think about what I want encrypted and what I don't. It would be nice to be able to selectively turn it off. I don't need encryption for my music or videos, but I do want it for my source code, ssh keys, and documents. All of those go into different directories by default, and some aren't normally visible in finder. Setting up symlinks isn't nearly as easy as FileVault is.

FileVault is a good idea. Too bad the implementation is broken. :(
 
Apple QC has gone way down hill

I have bought 3 powerbooks and 1 ibook over the last 4years. I have a friend that bought 1 iBook and 1 PowerMac G5. Between us every machine except 1 iBook has had problems.

My first PowerBook hinges cracked and paint pealed. My second PowerBook screen failed and power supply burnt out. My third PowerBook the graphics subsystem is all screwy ( it leaves triangles, lines, dirty poxels on screen upon moving screen elements). My friends have had similar problems and most of these occurred within 6 months of purchase.

In addition we have had all of the software bugs and lack of hardware support associated with OS 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, & 10.3.

In the meantime my business has bought 5 Dell Inspiron laptops over the same period. They get carried around, banged around, and abused. None of the Dells have failed. In addition, Windows 2000 and XP have been rock solid and support a much larger subset of peripherals.

Don't get me wrong, I love Apple, OS X, etc. but it really is getting hard to overlook the annoyances of poor Apple QC. Especially when Apple users generally pay more for their hardware and OS.

Greg
 
Originally posted by iHack
Could a damaged keychain lead to being locked out of your filevault?
Click to expand...

No. Your FileVault home directory is just an AES-128-encrypted sparse disk image. It can be mounted just like any disk image as long as you can provide the passphrase. If necessary, you can mount the backed-up copy of your home directory image on another computer using that passphrase. (You do have a backed-up copy, don't you?)

Originally posted by bidge
Does anyone really need filevault or are people just playing with it for fun.
Click to expand...

I keep scans of all my credit cards on my laptop, front and back. I had a credit card stolen while I was on a business trip one time, and it was a royal pain in the rear to get somebody at home to go to my house, rifle through my files, and get a recent bill so I could call the bank and cancel the card.

I have no intention of letting anybody pick up my laptop, open it, and get my credit card numbers, expiration dates, security codes, and pictures of my signature.

I use FileVault, and I back up my laptop with Retrospect every single day. No problems to report here, but if I encounter any, it'll be trivial to restore my files from my backup.
 
will someone start a clean install vs archive install. I have questions to ask, and i dont want to get off topic. (i'm going to get panther this week)
 
ok here's my break down....

tiBook w/filevault used, clean install of 10.3.... totally trashed my system, lots of work hours lost

iBook, no filevault, ugrade install, preserving users, no problem EVER.

so, I have reformatted this drive AGAIN and will not use filevault. I think this is the culprit.
 
clean vs. dirty

before install: backed up EVERYTHING!
dirty install: upgrade. turned on FileVault. ran into problems. lost a lot. glad I backed up.
clean install: installed. turned on FielVault. Everything works. Coppied SOME (less than 1gb) files from backup to New Clean home directory. FileVault works. Restart, shut down, log out, all of the above work. Copy ALL of backed up home directory (10gb ish). FileVault DIES. All problems, AGAIN. Turn FileVault OFF. Restore from Back up. Everything works, with FileVault OFF.

A disapointing story. I would prefer using FileVault because I have a laptop and would not like someone getting ahold of my files should my laptop be stolen. So far I have never had a laptop stolen, so hopefully I wont run into this problem. *knock on wood*
 
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