Hi there --

We typically do tar jobs of entire directories to one of several tape drives. These drives can be DAT, DLT, SDLT, or LTO-4. One example would be the following:

A new directive in our company has made mandatory encryption of all backups. Therefore, once the tar command shown above is completed, the files on tape would need to be encrypted.

We have openssl installed on our system, and the command syntax that would appear to apply here, using the above example would be as follows:

After the above is completed, an encryption password would be entered by the administrator.

Is the above procedure the correct method? Also, is there any inherent danger to the tape or drive if the encryption is attempted on either? Thanks.

I don't think that will work because /dev/rmt/5mn is a device file and not a regular file. What you'll most likely need to do is tar to a file instead of your device encrypt the file and then tar the encrypted file to your tape device. There are certain tape drives that do encryption you might want to look into those as well since that would let you do it in one step.

Here is a way to do it all in a single command line:

http://kerneltrap.org/node/2737

good info, i used ccrypt third party software, this one is good.


ENCRYPTION:

This will create stuff.des3...don't forget the password you put in place of secretpassword.

Ok above there is a "-" at the end... this will extract everything.