

Ask HN: How should I secure virtual machines on developer laptops? - lox

I love having Ubuntu installed on a VMWare Fusion virtual machine on my Mac for development. It means I can code anywhere I take my laptop. I generally work off a data snapshot with any user details sanitized, but I worry about what would happen if my laptop were stolen. I understand that 99.99% of all laptop thefts would result in a quick formatting, but I'd love a solution that doesn't leave my codebase floating around.<p>My current line of thinking is an encrypted root partition on the virtual machine and then making sure that I shut down my virtual machine rather than simply suspending it.<p>Any other brilliant ideas?
======
jacquesm
I don't see why the fact that it is a VM is a factor here, you should secure
the HD of the laptop anyway. A VM allows you to do that twice, so it's better
rather than worse, or am I missing something here ?

Have you considered sticking the sensitive data on a USB thumbdrive and
removing that from the laptop when not in use ? That would be pretty cheap and
very effective.

------
wglb
Consider PGP Desktop and whole-disk encryption. You can still can lose your
laptop, but you won't compromise your data. Also, power off (shut down) the
laptop when transporting it.

------
drKarl
Perhaps you could use a TrueCrypt encrypted volume, in an external disk
(pendrive, USB disk), and mount the volume from within the Ubuntu Virtual
Machine.

