Encrypted TimeMachine Network Backup

Jan 25, '11 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Shannon Pandora

As the default setting, Time Machine does unencrypted backups. This hint changes that and works for both AFP and SMB shares.

As I backup my machine on a volume anyone in my network can access, I searched a way to store an encrypted backup. Unfortunately, if the target image for Time Machine simply is replaced by an encryptet image, the OS does not promt for entering a password and aborts.

In short, the trick is to copy a stored password from the user's Keychain to the System Keychain.

You need: A working Time Machine either normal or via the unsupported volumes method found for example in this forum. [crarko adds: I'm not sure if this is referring to this previous hint.]

Here is the procedure (found originally here). You may want to refer to that original post before trying this.

That's it.

[crarko adds: I haven't tested this one. If you're going to try this, I'd advise saving the old Time Machine backup on a separate drive (if feasible) instead of deleting it, and just create a new backup image using the procedure here. The original post doesn't delete the old backup until the new one is known to work, and that's a good idea.]

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110109051314544