Protection of files on tape

[Patrick Chim]

Hi all,

I used to tar some files on tape. During the process, can I add some encryption or password protection on it so that if the tape is lost, no one can retrieve the data from the tape without the encryption method or the password ?

If tar has no such feature, what other tools can I use ? Does gzip support this ?

Or simply, how can I protect the content of a tape ?

My OS running is HP-UX 11i .

Best Regards,
Patrick

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

There is no way to encrypt or protect data on a tape with the standard types of backup tools. You can override any tape with any type of backup. Most of them don't even check, although 'fbackup' will look to see if the tape was previously used as an fbackup and report the number of times it has been used as an 'fbackup' tape.

Only the commerical software products like omniback and Legato have built in data protection within it's database catalogue, although these tapes can still be overwritten buy using a different backup methods.

The only way to protect a tape is to use the write-protect tab on the edge of the tape.

Michael

[Sukant Naik]

Hi Patrick,

There is no way you can stop anybody from reading the data onto your tape.

Anybody can over-write the data on your tape with tar/cpio/dd etc.

The only way out is not to allow access your tapes. We have an offsite and a fireproof cabinets where we store all our tapes.

And also, there is a write protect tab which you can use to protect the tape after backup.

-Sukant

[Patrick Chim]

Hi Michael,

Thanks you for your quick response.

Is it possible to encrypt or zip the file with password before I tar it on the tape ? If so, what tools should I use ?

Best & Regards,
Patrick

[Frank Slootweg]

> Is it possible to encrypt or zip the file
> with password before I tar it on the tape ?
> If so, what tools should I use ?

Not very advanced, but UNIX standard, see the crypt(1) command.

Tip: You could have found this with "man -k crypt" (or "... encrypt", etc.), i.e. try to determine a reasonable keyword for your problem/question and do a "man -k keyword". With a little bit of effort/luck, it will often give you one or more pointers.

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

There is a technique, I'll illustrate with tar:

To create tape:
tar cvf - . | crypt "topsecret" | dd ibs=512 obs=64k of=/dev/rmt/0m

To read tape:
dd if=/dev/rmt/0m ibs=64k obs=512 | crypt "topsecret" | tar xvf -