Desktop Email Encryption

"Supported" until the next OSX release anyway. Better have a backup CD.

It's too bad that I have less faith in my ability to perform a software update with PGP installed, than I have in Jesus Christ.

Seems like as of November 19th, it's supported. 

Here is the OSX notes: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5541

I have a MacBookPro Retina running 10.8.2, I also use Bootcamp to run Windows 7. Is the latest version of PGP be compatible with this setup?

@Kelvin_Kwan: This sounded great....at first. But looking at the other official pages it says MP4 doesn't support 10.8.2. e.g.:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=AL1353&key=59289

And unfortunately that's what customer support says, too.

I'm struggling to activate my brand new PGP Desktop 10.2.1 MP4 installation on a MB Pro Retina with OSX 10.8.2

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Michael

@ Kelvin_Kwan

I run  a MacBookPro Retina display under Mac OS 10.8.2 using FileVault. Can I install without any problems Symantec Encryption Desktop (10.2.1 Build 4961)? I am specifically afraid because WDE apparently created always problems. I can not un-tick to innstall Symantec Drive Encryption (the field is grey and can not be changed). I am only interested in the possibility to de- and encrypt e-mails.

With the version 10.2.1 (Build 4869) PGP (installed without WDE!) my PGP did not start (it always crashed with an entry in Konsole).

Thank you

atall

All,
I've updated the original post from myself.  I'm happy to say that QA has fully qualified 10.2.1 MP4 to support OS X 10.8.2.  You can now officially run 10.2.1MP4 on OS X 10.8.2!

Thanks for everyone's patience with this!

To me the reason to use PGP is Universal server. Apple does not provide enterprise features like:

• Status console (who is encrypted)
• Console control of enforcing encryption
• Whole Disk Recovery Tokens - i.e. I can give someone access when passphrase is lost/forgotten

and much much more. The last one is absolutely required. I know there are workarounds for some of these things with filevault and Mac compatible versions are much delayed compared to windows compatible version. However, without the enterprise features, FileVault 2 is not a valid replacement - for us - no matter how valid their security model may be. 

To add to vickg's comment. only the mac client is updated to 10.2.1 mp4. the windows and linux clients are still 10.2.1 Mp3. But the client that you download from PGP Universal Server after installing the pup-lite version will be 10.2.1 mp4 for mac and 10.2.1 Mp3 for other clients.

the "pup-lite" should make it possible for your universal server to generate managed 10.2.1 mp4 client installers.  however, according to tech support and as pgp_ben indicated, the pup-lite will not update your universal version/build number; you'll just get the new option when clicking the download client button. 

but, in case you need you need to customize the client installer w/o applying the the pup update to your universal server, this article (updated for mp4/mountain-lion) may come in handy:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO77365

Ben,

To follow on this, will universal server generate a managed 10.2.1 MP4 client or only a 10.2.1 mp3 managed client?

If not, wouldn't needing to push a newer client count as something "changed in universal server" ?

Our customer dictates that we do not use the unmanaged client. So for all intents and purposes, PGP has not been updated until we can generate the appropriate client with universal server.

Thank you.

(I am not the admin who works on the server, so I apologize if I got some of the terminology messed up.)

Here is a tip peter 699. The PUP update that is Generally Available on fileconnect is an Desktop client only PUP update (aka PUP lite). 10.2.1 MP4 was a Mac only release update. So it doesn't incorporate any new fixes into PGP Universal Server or the Windows and Linux clients. Therefore, the build number for PGP Universal Server remains the same. There should be nothing to worry about here. I would just make sure that the build number that the Mac clients install is 10.2.1 MP4 (build 4961). To verify you can click the PGP PGP Engine in the top right corner of the screen and then select about  PGP Desktop.

I hope that helps answer your question.

OK,

so I updated to MP4 and under 'System|updates' on the servers it shows the right version:

But under 'System|General Settings' the older build is still shown:

Is that intentional? How would I know if the MP4 update was applied or not...

Good Thomas. Maybe you can click the thumbs up next to my post :)

@PGP_Ben: Thank you for your quick resonse. I now "formaly" disabled the SSL for the SMTP Server by unclicking the box in the advanced smtp server settings and now it works. This is the first time I made a good experience with PGP-Support!

George, please see my reply a few threads down in regards to release notes, etc. Thanks!

@Thomas Hasselbach - There are known issues with regards to Email Encryption on OSX 10.8.2. Please see the release notes for more information. I think it's mostly just specifics around the initial setup for email encryption. Please review the release notes and if they don't resolve the issue - then please message me on the forum here (by clicking on my name). Then send me some specifics about your mail setup, email protocols, mail client and mail client version, etc.

Symantec Encryption Desktop 10.2.1 MP4 for Mac OS X Release Notes

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/resources/sites/BUSINESS/content/live/DOCUMENTATION/5000/DOC5541/en_US/symcEncrDesktop_1021MP4_mac_readme_en.pdf

I installed yesterday OS X 10.8.2 and PGP 10.2.1 MP4. E-Mail-Decryption works. E-Mail-Encryption does not. Perhaps my fault? Wrong settings or a basic problem?

In response on the question about 10.8.2 support. It should work, we have done some testing with the 10.2.1 Mp4 release. But I would strongly advise you to just use caution and test in a small group first. Make sure you have recent backups in the case of using WDE, just in case you run into  a problem with booting the machine.

Yes!  I concur, always have a backup prior to do anything such as encryption or simply updating your OS.  (It's rare that something goes wrong, but it does happen regardless if it's updating the encryption software or OS.)

We did not qualify/QA 10.2.1MP4 on OS X 10.8.2.  Hence, we cannot claim that 10.2.1MP4 will or won't work with 10.8.2.  You'll notice that 10.8.2 was released 6-days ago, hardly enough time for us to QA 10.2.1MP4 against it.  Until QA gives us blessing for it, we will continue to say 10.2.1MP4 supports up to only OS X 10.8.1. 

Seems that email encryption does not work.

I don't know if it's technically supported or not, but MP4 does work for me on OS X 10.8.2.  I installed MP4 last night and encrypted 10.8.2 immediately following the installation with no problems I am aware of.

How can I update to ML now if I can only download the up-to-date version 10.8.2 which is NOT supported by PGP 10.2.1 MP4 ?!?!?!

I hope I didn't hit you over the head with my strong comments, but I learned the importance of backing up first the hard way a couple of years ago.  Most of the grief and anger in these threads over updating are sad stories of people who also learned too late that PGP updates should never be applied without backing up first.

Yeah, I headed down that treacherous path once before with an update.  

Decrypting HD now prior to any schenanigans.  CCC of complete system working unencrypted style first.  Thumb drive with Lion installed as an OS with a copy of PGP with keys on it...just in case.  

ED 10.2.1 MP4 works fine on OS X 10.8.2, at least for me.  But whatever you do, DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT TRY IT WITHOUT HAVING A CURRENT BACKUP THAT YOU KNOW WILL BOOT YOUR SYSTEM IN CASE OF FAILURE.

Any timetable on 10.8.2? If I d/l ML now, that is the only version available. If I wait for PGP to get out their new compatable beta, 10.8.x will be out.  Can't catch up.

stable. horse. bolted.

Sorry but this just took way too long and I decided I could no longer trust Symantec with PGP, and combined with the associated costs I went for a different solution for the future.

How could you get this so wrong ???

Ciao.

All,
I have just updated my original post above.  Symantec Encryption officially released support for Apple OS X Mt. Lion  support today.  The version of PGP WDE you must run for support is 10.2.1 MP4. 

The release notes can be viewed here:  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/resources/sites/BUSINESS/content/live/DOCUMENTATION/5000/DOC5541/en_US/symcEncrDesktop_1021MP4_mac_readme_en.pdf

Thank you for your patience and understanding on the delayed support for Mt. Lion.

Ben,

Where do I download the latest PGP Desktop to test with OS 10.8.2? Anything that works, is better than what I have today (nothing with PGP 10.0.2.13).

Please, help.

PGP 10.2.1 Build 4940.

Bill, can you confirm what build of PGP Desktop you are testing with OSX 10.8.2 today?

I am working with QA and Engineering to try and confirm what builds of OSX 10.8 they are testing with. But I know that I have seen several bugs going into our next maintenance pack - Mp4 where they are testing OSX 10.8.2 so I hope to have an answer for you in time for the maintenance pack coming soon.

My use of PGP is limited.  I use it primarily to create virtual encrypted disks.  That said, I installed OS X 10.8.2 today and have seen no problems. 

Bill

Ben,

Any idea if the just released 10.8.2 is going to be supported in the upcoming PGP release or will we need to hold users back from upgrading?

Thanks,

Derek

As with  any new apple hardware that you have not tested in your environment yet. Best to backup the data first and try the latest version of PGP on a few machines before rolling it out to more mac's. The fixes have been tested with Macbook Air and Macbook Pro models. While these machines do have Ivy Bridge chipsets. I'm not certain if the fixes have been tested on an a 2012 iMac with the Ivy Bridge chipset yet.  I would assume that it may work though since the problem was with chainboot on the new EFI of these newer models and also missing keyboard drivers on the new Macbook Pro and Macbook Air models.

Hi Ben, thanks for getting back to me. I think I should have been more specific in my question.

The underlying problem as stated in this thread and several others is that PGP has an issue with Ivy Bridge chipsets… I don't think it has never been stated that this is a problem specifically to do with *only* “MacBook Air (mid-2012) and MacBook Pro 10.1 systems” … so I guess what I am trying to say is:

Are all current and future Ivyu Bridge Macs now safe to install PGP on, or do we have to go through this for each IVY Bridge mac to be produced in the future? For example, what happens when iMacs have Ivy Bridge chips in them?  Is it safe for me to tell my institution that the Ivy Bridge issue is resolved, or is it only partially resolved?

Thanks again,

Andrew

You should still wait. We have identified a problem with the Mail app functionality and PGP Desktop as well.

If you are looking at PGP Universal Server release notes - you won't expect to see client fixes there.

@UVic_Andrew - from our PGP Whole Disk Encryption 10.2.1 for Mac release notes:

What's Changed in PGP Desktop for Mac OS X 10.2.1 MP3
• Resolved the issue so that MacBook Air (mid-2012) and MacBook Pro 10.1 systems successfully boot to Mac OS X after encryption starts or when the drive is encrypted. [2863110]

EDIT: Found those here:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5541

Hi Ben,

it's me again. I only use PGP for Mail encryption/decryption and not for disk encryption. Can I already upgarde to mountain lion when using 10.2.1 MP3 or should I wait?

Best regards

Georg

Hi, There are lots of comments such as "It [MP3] should have the fix for Bootguard not coming up on Ivy Bridge hardware using Mac OSX 10.7", but the release notes don't seem to mention this. Can anyone confirm that the ivy bridge fix is included in MP3???

Hi, that is an excellent inquiry and I'm going to refer your inquiry to product management to answer about the upcoming release of MP4 for PGP Whole Disk Encyption.

Ben,

Please keep in mind that many of individuals in this forum are using Symantec PGP to ensure the fortification of their data. Its Symantec’s integrity they rely upon to ensure they have expedient updates and information to aid in the fruition of our business. It is frustrating when Symantec’s competitors have viable releases and Symantec is months behind. 

If I may offer advice, you are representing Symantec; a defensive position is not good PR for your company. I know working a public forum can be frustrating, possibly because you might be a developer on the project and hearing about it from both sides; at least to me it looks that way. As I previously mentioned, the people here are loyal customers of Symantec, we use Symantec’s products because of the reliability, but we are only looking for expedient updates and information to aid in the fruition of our business.

Note to anyone looking at this. Symantec has the Peer Review Source Code if you want to get your hands dirty her is the link:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/symantec-pgp-desktop-peer-review-source-code

Any ETA when 10.2.1 MP4 will be released ? Eagerly waiting for one.

So what's the ETA on 10.2.1 MP4? McAfee and Sophos have managed to get thier updates out.

UPDATE: 10.2.1 MP3 is coming out tomorrow. It should have the fix for Bootguard not coming up on Ivy Bridge hardware using Mac OSX 10.7. This will not have all the compatability/fixes for 10.8 (yet). But it might be a good release to start your own internal testing on since it has some issues already addressed there.

NOTE: I wouldn't install 10.2.1 MP3 on 10.8 production machines without testing it.

10.2.1 MP4 is the release that will be available for OSX 10.8 compatability.

That was a mistake. Engineering has came back and said Q4 of CY2012. I thought i had edited all my links. My mistake. This should be available soon. Please stay tuned.

Hi Ben, Any update on this? It's been a month since 8/3.

Two methods

- data recovery  - use target disk mode with another mac that has PGP installed, auth disk and backup data

- blow away - boot to internet recovery / osx install disk. open disk utility and re-partition the drive (re-format ting your boot volume will NOT remove PGP bootloader)

Whats the recommended recovery if I have installed PGP 10.2.0.2526 onto Mac OS x Mountain Lion 10.8.  I see the recovery recommendation at http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH176187 but this only mention Mac OS X Lion 10.7. 

After installation of PGP I can enter a passphrase and then the screen freezes clear white.  Since this is a new MacBook Air I have little/no user data on it.

I am jus wondering. Why is it that everyone is okay with Apple stating that they will have a new product release out "sometime this summer 2012" and everyone jumps on the bandwagon and gets all excited :) Then gets all upset when vendors don't have 100% compatability out of the gate with their product release.

But we state that it will be out in Q4 and get flack? :)  Anybody who works in the business world and work with lawyers and accountants and understands how software companies work. Official software release dates are rarely announced publicly unless it gets much closer to the release and then even then, it's "sometime in August 2012" for example or "by the end of the month".  When we set a hard date, we are pressed to push the product out hte door by that time, even though it may not have gone through full QA cycles, etc.  One thing that nobody really takes into account is that when we release a new product version, we still have to go through all the third party review for FIPS validatin, certification, government encryption standards and those types of things. This takes weeks to complete.

By all means, if Filevault works for you. I see no reason to go with that product for your daily usage. PGP still offers a lot more features than filevault encryption does. PGP Zip, email encryption, very soon we hope to have native Exchange Web Services email proxying capabilities with Outlook 2011. We offer the central management capabilities and interopability with other products that is good for Enterprise businesses.

I'm using FV2 and it seems to be working just fine.  Also, it is extremely easy to boot from clones, AND, unlike PGP, when the external clones are plugged in, they mount on the desk top already decrypted and ready to go; no need to enter the PW again). I have verified in Disk Utility that the clones are encrypted btw. I would be interested though to know if Apple's encyption implementation is as secure as PGP's.

You should try FV2 while you wait and wait and wait for Symantec to get 10.8.0 fixed. By October, Apple could be on 10.8.2.  Then what if Symantec is again looking for a solution?

I might or might not go back to PGP, but I'll decide for sure by January when my maintenance agreement is up for renewal.  In the meantime, FV2 it is and it's working great.

So as of now, the only outstanding item on my Lion -> Mountain Lion upgrade - and apparantly still won't be ready until sometime Q4 (nice precise date !) is PGP.

Have to echo some of the other comments above - given the general lack of interest by Symantec in the Mac platform, and given their dubious upgrade practices, once PGP is working for ML I might just decrypt all my encrypted files (not disks) and then crypt them with something else in the future.

So that would seem to be that then...

Shows what I know. You are right it boots just fine. The disk password is totally independant of user passwords.

Hmm, 

didn't know about not being able to boot from an FV2 clone. Can you not mount it and then choose it from the start up disk part of System Preferences then reboot?

If not then this would be an obvious next step for Apple.

Having said that I always keep one non-encrypted clone, not trusting ANY encryption system that completely

The main advantage with pgp is bootable encrypted clones. I dont know a way to boot from a SDuper VFalult2 clone.

But never having to deal with symantec again will be worth loosing bootable clones. 

Thanks chanlsrfer

To be honest I think that unless anyone can point out any significant advantages of PGP over FileVault 2 in Mountain Lion then I think I will no longer be using PGP.

I uninstalled PGP from my Retina MBP and upgraded to Mountain Lion. I decrypted one of the PGP encrypted external drives using my old MBP and then attached the drive to my RMBP and re-encrypted it with FileVault 2. This all worked fine. I intend to do the same with the clone drive that I keep at work.

Though there have been a number of individuals at PGP/Symantec who have clearly wanted to do their best for the Mac community, it seems to me that there has been little 'corporate' interest and the service at this level has been poor, (and its website remains one of the poorest and most difficult to navigate that I have ever encountered)

As I say I can't think of any compelling reason to continue to use PGP WDE now that Mountain Lion will allow encryption of external drives with FV2 but I'm happy to receive any comments to the contrary.

Cheers

Iain

IanF,

Please learn from my experiences.  Take the extra day or two to decrypt all of your drives prior to upgrading, then re-encrypt with the approved Symantec release.  The alternative is lengthy and painful.  Search my recent posts to follow my experience and (lack of) help solving the issue (myself).

Play it save and let other people beat their heads into the wall trying to fix issues that should have been backward compatable.

Regards

Hi

One further question. I haven't encrypted my Lion boot disk with PGP but still have some external drives that are PGP encrypted. PGP works fine to allow me to access these drives under Lion. Will PGP work under these circumstances with Mountain Lion i.e. only to decrypt external drives.

Cheers

Iain

So is it "a month from 8/3" or Q4 (eg October or later)?

I just saw that fileconnect now lists pgp 3.2.1MP2 is that OK for Mountain Lion or do we have to wait for MP3?

Georg, the short answer is no. I have been made aware of some problems with messaging that have been recently indentified as well. What we do have is a commitment that they are working on getting the changes needed resolved as soon as possible and we hope to have a solution with an upcoming maintenance pack.

Hi Ben,

I only use PGP for Mail encryption/decryption and not for disk encryption. Does that mean, that I can already uogarde to mountain lion or should I wait a month?

Kind regards

Georg

I apologize, I made a mistake in my reply. we should have a compatible release out within a month from today 08/03/12

Two things:

1) We don't like shipping PGP Desktop out the door saying it's compatible with version 10.8 until our QA team has done rigorous testing on the platform and made sure that it works. This is taking time. Most of the things are fine, except when you attempt to a encrypt a disk you can get an error 1. But until all the bugs are fixed, we aren't going to say that we officially support it. There is also some fixes being done to improve usability on the newer Retina Macbook's.

2) Call me skeptical, but I find it hard to believe that other Disk Encryption competitors are able to release a compatible version this quickly to the GA release.  So I took the liberty of searching myself and found the following

 - Sophos says nothing (in the forums or on the support site) about Disk Encryption with Safeguard working on 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Their system requirements state 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7

http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/encryption/safeguard-disk-encryption-for-mac/system-requirements.aspx

- Checkpoint appears to be stating that they are compatible with 10.8 if you are on version 3.4.1. with a caveot:

Mac OS X 10.8.x (Mountain Lion) - Tested using the Apple Golden Master, but not
supported until the official release date. (this means that last minute changes, like Sarah talked about could be coming into play here)

http://dl3.checkpoint.com/paid/6a/CP_3.4.1_FullDiskEncryption_Mac_ReleaseNotes.pdf?HashKey=1344031043_2eae87f525e2c7ea6ffde74d9f796113&xtn=.pdf

Futhermore, checkpoints support site on Mac OS X version support doesn't list Mountain Lion

https://supportcenter.checkpoint.com/supportcenter/portal?eventSubmit_doGoviewsolutiondetails=&solutionid=sk65048&js_peid=P-114a7ba5fd7-10001

As I have stated in other forum threads. It's possible that we could have support for it in our next maintenace pack (coming at the end of the month) but we are setting a target date for the next minor release in case there are other issues that QA discovers in our testing.

Apple changes code at the last minute.

so a dev GM release generally isnt the same as a released product.

Look at 10.7.4 virtual disk issue, it worked in pre-rlease versions w/o an issue... but somehow it broke when apple CHANGED code before real-relase.

So really, as much as we all want to blame PGP for these issues, Apple isnt being very fair either.

I completely concur with bob.desilets position.  The developer's code and gold master have been our for more than 6 months.  This is a re-occuurring experience with Symantec WDE upon a new release of Mac OS X.  Always way behind the curve causing their loyal customers to wait for Symantec to catch up to the rest of the programming world.

You have to be kidding.  November?  So we have to tell our users not to replace their machines that are end of life as new OSX machines can't be downgraded to 10.7?  So why are your competetors Check Point and Sophos able to get WDE clients for 10.8 out the door when the product launches, but you aren't? 

This should be available sometime in Q4 of CY2012 timeframe.

CORRECTION: I have been told that Engineering is working to resolve the issues with 10.8 compatability in a maintenance pack and release it sooner.

So... what's the timeline on Mountian Lion support?