[Tomster]

One of the bullet points with this last update is that FileVault only asks to reclaim unused disk space when necessary. So does it mean that it is now safe to use?

I think transparent encryption is a fantastic thing and FileVault will be priceless when it is working. Unfortunately, it pretty much trashed my prefs in its first incarnation. Apple said it was "fixed" yet again in 10.3.1 but other users here reported some issues, although none as catastrophic as the first version.

Any feedback as to if it is really fixed for good this time?

Also, to the gurus out there, are there really disadvantages to constantly reading and writing to a sparse image like Filevault?

[Dr_Doom]

I am curious about this too. Filevault IHMO is one of the greatest features of 10.3 that I am afraid to use. I am on a TiBook 800 and the only thing that makes keep wanting to turn on the FileVault is some relatively sensitive data.

So . . .

Can we turn it on yet?

Bueller?
Bueller?


Cheers,

Dr_Doom

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by Dr_Doom:
I am curious about this too. Filevault IHMO is one of the greatest features of 10.3 that I am afraid to use. I am on a TiBook 800 and the only thing that makes keep wanting to turn on the FileVault is some relatively sensitive data.

So . . .

Can we turn it on yet?

Bueller?
Bueller?


Cheers,

Dr_Doom

From all reports it was safe in 10.3.1.

However, it doesn't work well if you keep all of your movies, pictures, etc in your home directory... That's a *lot* of data to encrypt, rather needlessly. Not being able to exclude such folders is one of the few downsides to using a sparse disk image.

[NY152]

I never enabled FileVault before the 10.3.1 update came out so I cannot speak for the previous problems people were experiencing. However I did activate it as soon as I updated to 10.3.1 and since then I have not had a single problem. It's asked to reclaim HD space three times without incident.

[Tomster]

Just a follow up on this topic. Judging by the lack of feedback, I am assuming most of the problems have been ironed out. I re-enabled FileVault and have the following feedback.

No issues with any prefs sticking so far. In fact, I have no indication it is running at all aside from the fact my home directory is now a single file when viewed from other accounts. As for cpu usage, no drastic increase in load.

One good point. When synching two computers, I only have to worry about one file. In fact, I can probably just manually copy over the single file.

One point here. I have a 450M home directory.
My 20 gigs of music and 6 gigs of photos reside on a separate partition. Not sure what the performance will be if all of that was stored in ~/Pictures and ~/Music.

All in all, things look good.

[mcsjgs]

O'Reilly's Mac Dev Center posted an excellent article on FileVault today here:

FileVault Article

[Tomster]

Great article. Thanks.

Concerned what will happen during a kernel panic though. Any experiences out there?

[Tomster]

Final update. FileVault is not ready for prime time. Still have the same issue I did with 10.3. On my system, Bluetooth is always enabled and in the menubar upon restart even though it is shut off and removed on shutdown. Tried deleting/locking/moving the Bluetooth and systemuiserver plists, but no effects. Same thing happened with the first version of 10.3...and a day later, everything went to hell. Somehow, the prefs don't seem to be read which makes me think the image is not yet mounted when bluetooth is initialized. Makes me wonder what else is happening that I cannot see. Maybe 10.3.3...

[darrick]

after the 10.3.2 update, does FileVault still break applescripts?

it's my understanding (maybe wrong) that FileVault changes the paths for items in one's home directory so that scripts cannot find files and folders.

is there a workaround if FileVault still causes problems: like turning FileVault on when shutting the computer down and turning it off when starting it up (with a script)?