Re: Secure backup of encrypted partition

[Rob McGee <i812@softhome.net>]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2003 at 08:43:59PM +0200,
  Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote:
> When I use tar -o ...... $FILE | gpg -c ......
> 
> (please sobebody help to write a working example)

See "tar --help". I don't know what your -o is supposed to do. Generally
GNU tar writes to stdout by default, so you just do something like this:
  tar -cp files-to-backup | gpg -c > outputfile
Then decrypt with this:
  gpg outputfile > secret.tar
or restore with this:
  gpg outputfile | tar -xp

> and my swap is encrypted, can some unencrypted temp files be 
> created in /tmp or another dir?

I think neither tar nor gpg does this. (If gpg does, it's a SERIOUS
security hole!) But to be safe, if you're using bash:
  export TMPDIR=/path/to/an/encrypted/fs
IIUC most things will use $TMPDIR for temporary files, but some may be
hard-coded to use /tmp.

    Rob - /dev/rob0
-
Linux-crypto:  cryptography in and on the Linux system
Archive:       http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-crypto/