Syncing Between 2 Encyrpted Folders

[who281]

Just wanted to make sure this works the way I think it will, and it is the best way to go about doing this.

 

I want to sync a folder from someones computer to a remote server. I know sync itself sends the data securely, but I want to make sure the folders on both ends are secure as well.

 

If I encrypt the folders on both the users computer and the server (say with truecrypt) will I run into on problems sycing?

 

And is this a very secure way of storing/sending files?

 

Would it cause any problems if the files were coming from a mac or PC to a linux or freeBSD server?

 

 

THANKS!

Edited January 25, 2014 by who281

[RomanZ]

Hi who281,

 

You can sync data between true crypt volumes, but there are couple of peculiarities about it:

 

1. If you are syncing files inside TrueCrypt volume:

    - TrueCrypt not always notifies OS about the file changes. Which means that sometimes file change is missed, and will be synced only during full rescan (once per 10 minutes by default, can be adjusted)

    - TrueCrypt volume needs to be mounted to do actual sync

    - Files on true crypt volume will be accessible in OS when it is mounted (I mean - TrueCrypt adds security value because unauthorised person can't access it when it is unmounted, but when it is mounted - it is pretty much the same as any other drive)

 

2. If you are syncing the volume file itself

    - It is going to be big. And when it changes, BTSync has to re-hash whole file to find the differences. It is going to load your CPU a lot.

    - Different programs behave differently with their documents. In case of TrueCrypt it does not change modification time for the volume file for security reasons, so it is impossible for BTSync to determine which volume to sync, and which to overwrite.

 

So, due to #2 - I would avoid syncing TrueCrypt volume files.

 

As for the cross-platform file syncing - it is allowed, please consider next peculiarities:

1. On different platforms different symbols are considered to be valid or invalid in filenames (for example, "*" is a valid symbol for Mac, but is prohibited for FAT/NTFS file systems)

2. Different OSes stand differently towards case sensitivity of file names.

3. Different OSes has different permission patterns, so be sure that btsync has enough permissions to write data in Sync'ed folders.