[X4U] Any concerns about tarring a user account?

[Neil Laubenthal]

Quoting Joshua Hough <soyjourner at mac.com>:

> Hi, I'd like to temporarily hide a single user account by moving it
> into a tar file.  My questions are:
>
> 1. Later I'd like to untar the account and restore it exactly as it
> was.  Are there any cautions about this?  Such as permissions?
>
> 2. How can I password-protect the tar file?  I don't see any
> possibilities under "man tar."


I assume you're really talking about the homedirectory and not the  
account. If you don't delete the account from Accounts then I'm not  
sure where you're really going with this.

I would probably copy the homedir to an encrypted .dmg file instead of  
a tar file . . . but you could always tar first and then put the tar  
on the encrypted .dmg . . . I don't know any way offhand to password  
protect a tar file; although maybe you could encrypt it somehow.

If you tar'ed or .dmg'ed the homedir and then deleted the account . .  
. when you come back later restore the homedir before you create the  
account. If you do it in this order the Accounts pane will recognize  
the pre-existing homedir when you create the account and ask if you  
want to use it . . . then reset the permissions correctly when you  
click Yes.