Using a Unix terminal to encrypt a disk under OS X

Question

I'm interested in knowing whether there are any native utilities (possibly under diskutil) to encrypt a disk via the command line in OS X 10.8.4. I can use FileVault or Mac OS's Disk Utility Erase tab, but am just curious whether there is a command-line alternative.

Solution 1

You can use the following command to encrypt from the command line:

diskutil cs convert /Volumes/your_drive_name_here -passphrase

You should get output similar to this:

computer name:~ username$ diskutil cs convert /Volumes/your_drive_name_here -passphrase
New passphrase for converted volume:
Confirm new passphrase:
Started CoreStorage operation on disk2s1 your_drive_name_here
Resizing disk to fit Core Storage headers
[ - 0%..10%.............................................. ]
Creating Core Storage Logical Volume Group
Attempting to unmount disk2s1
Switching disk2s1 to Core Storage
Waiting for Logical Volume to appear
Mounting Logical Volume
Core Storage LVG UUID: D1EAB2C3-EC21-41DA-AD60-75E1302E247B
Core Storage PV UUID: 991C89E9-A628-408C-AAFF-39A561FCB95C
Core Storage LV UUID: 36483526-6C2C-43FA-A4B7-6F503473F1C2
Core Storage disk: disk3
Finished CoreStorage operation on disk2s1 your_drive_name_here
Encryption in progress; use `diskutil coreStorage list` for status

I have a post here with more details:

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/encrypting-10-7-non-boot-volumes-without-erasing-them/

Solution 2

If you have Mountain Lion or later, use fdesetup

examples