Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, Dposcorp

 
Jon
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 980
Joined: Sat Feb 14, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: -Alberta-

Truecrypt & encrypting dynamically expanding VM volume.

Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:59 pm

Does anybody know if Truecrypt supports encrypting a dynamically expanding virtual machine volume?
I have a Thin Provisioned disk in a VMWare Fusion VM and want to apply encryption to the entire volume.
Image
-Playing shooters on a console is like doing brain surgery with an ice-cream scoop-
 
SecretSquirrel
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2726
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: North DFW suburb...
Contact:

Re: Truecrypt & encrypting dynamically expanding VM volume.

Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:40 am

Jon wrote:
Does anybody know if Truecrypt supports encrypting a dynamically expanding virtual machine volume?
I have a Thin Provisioned disk in a VMWare Fusion VM and want to apply encryption to the entire volume.


I assume you are asking if you can encrypt a thinly provisioned volume without it growing to the size of its provisioning. As I understand it, if you enable "Quick Format" at volume creation, it will not write random data to the entire volume and only encrypt data written to the volume. The down side is that you can tell where the encrypted data ends on the volume and therefore how much data there is. You also cannot effectively implement a hidden partition in this volume.

If "Quick Format" is turned off, then truecrypt is going to write random data across the entire volume and will expand your thin provisioned disk to its maximum size.

--SS
 
Forge
Lord High Gerbil
Posts: 8253
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2001 7:00 pm
Location: Gone

Re: Truecrypt & encrypting dynamically expanding VM volume.

Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:36 pm

I think he meant the other direction, with a VMware disk inside a TrueCrypt volume.

A TC volume has a set, fixed size. Your VM volume will be free to grow to that size, but will get "out of space on device" messages once the TC volume is full. TC does not grow volumes.

Also, this is a poor fit from a security standpoint. VMware is very "leaky", with info from inside the VM being accessible in a number of locations and different files.
Please don't edit my signature for me. Thanks.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On