How to mount an encrypted ext3 filesystem under OS X?

I know how to mount an ext3 filesystem in OS X with MacFUSE and fuse-ext2. But how can I mount an encrypted ext3 volume?

I have Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" running.

viam0Zah

Posted 2010-02-17T15:08:16.550

Reputation: 1 909

4Which encryption? – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2010-04-12T14:25:24.577

@Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams: AES 128 with a SHA256 hashing. – viam0Zah – 2010-04-13T07:22:48.277

3The algorithm doesn't matter. The mechanism does. TrueCrypt? LUKS? Something else? – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2010-04-13T13:41:17.717

1@Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams: LUKS. – viam0Zah – 2010-04-14T15:03:08.797

http://askubuntu.com/questions/604554/encrypted-filesystem-shared-with-mac-os-x – Ciro Santilli 新疆改造中心法轮功六四事件 – 2016-07-01T15:24:53.377

Looks like if you want portability then a better option is veracrypt/truecrypt/zulucrypt which are compatible with each other and have clients for linux, mac, windows, ios, android, etc. – ccpizza – 2017-12-03T00:07:11.853

– kenorb – 2014-05-30T11:22:39.383

Answers

Unfortunately there is currently no way to mount unencrypted LVM volumes in OS X, much less LUKS-encrypted volumes.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

Posted 2010-02-17T15:08:16.550

Reputation: 100 516

9This was posted in April 2010. Have any new solutions appeared in the last 4 years? – SabreWolfy – 2014-02-05T09:04:05.953

One really slow and "stupid" way to do this is to install a tiny linux distro in a virtual machine, let that work as a interface against the disk by sharing a folder with the host(OS X). It is completely overkill, but it will work.

Algific

Posted 2010-02-17T15:08:16.550

Reputation: 1 143

It's really a compromise. LUKS is secure because it runs in the kernel space. But when doing encryption in a virtual machine, clear passphrase would be store in the user space of host machine. Some virtual machine software even maps vm memory into non-privileged user's process memory or files when suspending. – Sherwood Wang – 2015-09-27T06:34:28.803

1So it seems the trivial answer is that I cannot mount an encrypted volume in OS X but your solution is a good workaround for my problem, though. Thanks. – viam0Zah – 2010-04-17T20:09:22.863

You could try OSXCrypt which is "test-software" or something like that...

It might wreck your system since it's still underdevelopment. Not sure if you want that. I believe that it's supposed to let you access LUKS encrypted volumes under OSX. According to their website everything is a no-guarantee basis so if you have important or valuable files on the disk it's better off not trying it. Link here.

Vervious

Posted 2010-02-17T15:08:16.550

Reputation: 4 654

1It supports TrueCrypt. They want to let the community handle LUKS support. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams – 2010-04-16T05:27:47.307

2Oh. I see. I was wrong then. Well... what now? delete the answer? – Vervious – 2010-04-16T05:42:38.150