georgehe01: Encrypted TimeMachine Network Backup

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Encrypted TimeMachine Network Backup

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.