[wplug-internet] Backups

[Bill Moran]

In response to Vance Kochenderfer <vkochend at nyx.net>:

> Bill Moran <wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:
> > In response to Michael Semcheski <mhsemcheski at gmail.com>:
> > 
> > > OK, the target system is my computer, and the linode system is
> > > the WPLUG server.
> > > 
> > > 1. The linode system ssh's to the target and mounts the encrypted
> > > filesystem on the target.
> > 
> > #1 is not in line with your original proposal, and therefore doesn't
> > meet the original requirements.
> > 
> > The first step should be to use FUSE/sshfs to mount the encrypted
> > filesystem _over_ ssh/scp.  Doing it that way would prevent the system
> > with the data from ever accessing it, since the filesystem is never
> > actually mounted on the computer hosting it.
> > 
> > That is, unless FUSE works radically different than other implementations
> > I've seen.
> 
> I think Bill's got it right.  You attach a directory on the target
> machine to the Linode server via sshfs, e.g.
>   [root at linode]# sshfs wplug at mikes.machine.net: /mnt/mhsemcheski
> which connects /mnt/mhsemcheski on Linode to /home/wplug on Mike's
> machine.
> 
> This way, all encryption/decryption of the filesystem takes place
> on the Linode server, not on the target machine.

Shouldn't there be an extra step in there?  Mounting a remote file
as an encrypted filesystem?  I'm not very familiar with this process
on Linux, but found this howto:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Loopback-Encrypted-Filesystem-HOWTO.html

Appears to be a little out of date, but in the right spirit.

-- 
Bill Moran
http://www.potentialtech.com
http://people.collaborativefusion.com/~wmoran/