howto install 1Password files on encrypted usb stick (not for transfer from one mac to another)

Al_1Pusr

Why_space_dont_work_here_nor_punctuation
I_want_to_have_all_my_1P_files_on_encrypted_USBstick_for_daily_use__I_tried_symlink_wont_work
Im_using_1Pv3_on_Mac_PPC_MOSX1058
Why_is_it_so_ [removed by moderator] complicated_to_contact_support_interrogationmark

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Referrer: forum-search:how to install 1Password files on encrypted usb stick (not for transfer from one mac to another)

Al_1Pusr

testing_again_no_space_nor_punctuation

Megan

Hi @Al_1Pusr,

I'm sorry to hear that you've been having trouble with 1Password ... and these forums!

Why_space_dont_work_here_nor_punctuation

I'm not quite sure why you're having difficulty posting here. I'll be sure our forum gurus look into the matter. Could you tell us if you're posting from a mobile device or a desktop computer?

I_want_to_have_all_my_1P_files_on_encrypted_USBstick_for_daily_use

Unfortunately, 1Password 3 really wants to have the data file available to it at all times, so we do not recommend storing your 1Password.agilekeychain file on a removable drive. If you're looking for a little bit more security, I would recommend enabling FileVault on your computer.

Al_1Pusr

HelloMegan_yup_still_no_spaces_aaaargh
wait

Al_1Pusr

But brains will prevail ;) Seems that if I write in, say TexteEdit, then select/copy all in this field, it works !
Thanks for your answer.
I'm posting from my PowerBookG4 PPC on MOSX10.5.8 with all the online software updates available (which is no more now ... thanks Apple) where my 1P is installed.
I've seen this forum bug a few times in the past, can't remember where, but never got any explanation/resolution from those sites, and at the time obviously my OS and updates where previous versions.
I'll post separate comment re my 1P problem.

Al_1Pusr

Megan, re my 1P quiz :
You said 1P3 "wants its files", I say no problem : my USB stick is always plugged in when I'm logged in : that's the point !
So why won't a symlink work properly :
I moved
-/Library/Preferences/
com.agileagenda.AgileAgenda.xxx
ws.agile.-PasswordThumbs.plist
ws.agile.1Password.plist
and
-/Library/Application Support/1Password
and
-/Library/Preferences/Logs/1Password
to my USB stick and made symlinks to all of those then restarted my mac.

At first, 1P3 recreated a dir next to my symlink and requested me to locate my keychain (or create a new one) and then goes about copying it from my USB to my HDD which behaviour REALLY hit my nerves I have to say. This seemed to have happened because my symlink pointed to a dir on my USB where I had chosen to use another naming convention for my 1P folder.
That is the symlink had 1P's favoured name while the actual file had mine. Which shouldn't be a problem.
So in the interest of liquidating my 1P problem I changed that name back to "1Password".
Since that, so far 1P seems to mainly accept the situation BUT still has overwritten the 2 ws.* symlinks with actual ws.* files on my HDD !
Can this be avoided ?
BTW, why those ws.* names ? Why not agile.* or 1Password.* so that one can find those files when looking in the obvious place ?
Are there other files I'm overlooking ?
How important are those 2 ws.* files ?

Thanks in advance.
Al.

AGAlumB

Seems that if I write in, say TexteEdit, then select/copy all in this field, it works !

@Al_1Pusr: It sounds like you may be suffering the effects of some compatibility issues stemming from an outdated browser (since they have moved away from PowerPC long ago). Our forum software does take advantage of web standards supported only in modern browsers, so you'll continue having these issues here and on other sites, I'm afraid. Apple discontinued PowerPC Macs exactly 9 years ago, so browsers and website developers simply do not test for that platform any longer.

You said 1P3 "wants its files", I say no problem : my USB stick is always plugged in when I'm logged in : that's the point !
So why won't a symlink work properly :

1Password simply isn't designed to work this way. Granted, you're free to experiment, but the data is expected to be on a local drive (for reliability) and, well...actually present in the location specified (since it sounds like you're linking to the bundle, and not individual files or folders), which, in my experience, precludes the use of symbolic links, and external or network drives.

Now, it may be that we can consider changing this in a future version, but that still won't be helpful to you while you're using an old version (since development on 1Password 3 ended quite some time ago).

Since that, so far 1P seems to mainly accept the situation BUT still has overwritten the 2 ws.* symlinks with actual ws.* files on my HDD ! Can this be avoided ?

No. 1Password writes this file to disk so it can locate the .agilekeychain without having to search the entire filesystem. It's simply a pointer.

BTW, why those ws.* names ? Why not agile.* or 1Password.* so that one can find those files when looking in the obvious place ?

Historically, AgileBits was incorporated as "Agile Web Solutions". The name was changed in 2011, I believe, but we weren't about to go back and change the way preferences and other support files were named too and break things. And of course these are hidden files. We didn't intend that anyone look at them or manage them manually. ;)

Are there other files I'm overlooking ?

Overlooking, with what purpose in mind? You can find a list of the locations 1Password stores data in our old knowledgebase.

How important are those 2 ws.* files ?

In your situation, since you seem to be managing your vault manually, these files are probably not crucial, but they are created automatically by 1Password.

Ultimately the best thing to do would be to store your vault on your Mac's hard drive, and then copy it to the USB drive if and when you need to move it to another computer. Using Dropbox Sync makes it much less of a hassle though. I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions! :)

Al_1Pusr

Hello,

To Megan : I forgot to answer : I do use FileVault :)

To Brenty : Thanks a lot for your answer,

Regarding forum/keyboard issue :
Thanks for the fossil ;) but I feel that simple keyboard interaction should not be impacted by anything ... I really wonder what kind of "new technology" is involved in typing a few lines in a text field ... I'm sorry but I can't accept that. I mentioned that I encountered this type of field behavior in the past and by that I mean quite a good few years back so ... Anyways ...

Regarding 1P :
You say I'm linking to the bundle : I'm not sure I understand you when you say bundle. I'm making a good old NIX symlink with ln -s , not a Finder Alias (I tried but 1P is even more weird about it, which is also strange I think ... but anyways).
I'm not touching the app, only what is my actual user data and which I seem to have found to be all the dir/files under
~/Library/Application Support/1Password
~/Library/Logs/1Password
~/Library/Preferences/com.agile
~/Library/Preferences/ws.agile*

You say 1P simply isn't designed to work in this way : 1P is an app working on top of a NIX OS and so it should handle files accordingly which is being blind to the technicalities of the underlying fs and just follow the (sym)links, is it not ?
As I said in my last post, the symlink for the directories seem to pass undetected by 1P (as it should) but the ws symlinks are overwritten by actual files, which is weird.

"Now, it may be that we can consider changing this in a future version"
Every app should ask the customer/user where he/she wants to save his/her data, so yes it would be nice to adapt 1P accordingly which shouldn't be too hard with XCode providing for all the stuff behind File->Save as... since way back in NeXT ...

Also, I find that for an app managing secured data, it would be best to avoid spreading files all over the place, so having the app on one side and an encrypted user data dir with all the rest in it seems safer to me. Which leads to the last paragraph :)

re "overlooking" : just to be sure I'm catching all my user files, nothing else :)
Indeed the cache is one I overlooked, silly me, and the file ~/Library/Caches/1Password/default-datafile.cache contains some cleartext data which is annoying.

Best regards,
Al

sjk

Hi @Al_1Pusr,

Hope you don't mind my asking, and with all due respect, what exactly are you trying to accomplish by making these changes to store all files that 1Password uses except for the application itself (if I understand correctly) on an encrypted USB stick? The answer might give us some extra insight into how we can best help you find a solution that's compatible with your reasons and purpose for doing this. :)

Thanks in advance, and have a great weekend!