Mount TrueCrypt USB device w/o sudo on Mac OS X

Question

I made a TrueCrypt partition on a USB drive.

I can mount it fine but only using admin password, either via the graphical interface or via sudo truecrypt --auto-mount=devices. This is preventing me from using it for an automated backup. Mounting TC volumes contained in files on already mounted volumes presents no such requirement.

Is it possible to mount a Truecrypt partition volume in userspace on Mac, or otherwise without asking for password?

Answer 1

The reason TrueCrypt requires your administrator password is that it uses low level commands to create the proper devices and mount the filesystem and these commands in turn require root access (which the administrator acquires indirectly via sudo).

To avoid this, it's possible to use the "sudoers" file to give the right to a given user/application combination (in this case you/truecrypt) to automatically be run as root.

Log in as an administrator, then type the following command in a Terminal:

visudo

then add these two lines:

# Allow TrueCrypt run under user "XYZ" to run as root without asking for a password.
XYZ ALL=NOPASSWD: /Applications/TrueCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/TrueCrypt --core-service

Of course, replace "XYZ" by your user account name. Note that this opens a security hole since TrueCrypt will then have full access to any device you will mount your encrypted volume on. I have no idea how hard this would be to exploit though...

A few useful references:

• http://muzso.hu/2010/07/08/how-to-make-truecrypt-work-for-normal-users-and-with-ltspfs-mounted-local-devices-eg.-usb
• On the TrueCrypt forums at forums.truecrypt.org, the post 59182, search for "TC 6.0a prompt for Administrator password".

Answer 2

You could create a SUID script that has permissions to do this.
However, be warned about its insecurities in general.