Permissions for Sharing Encrypted Database

Hello!

On a multi-user system I often have a database in the /Users/Shared directory for exchange between the multiple users. This works well for an unencrypted database after making the database g+w. But I can’t figure out how to make this work with an encrypted database.

I tried setting the permissions on the encrypted image itself as well as mounting the encrypted image and then setting the permissions on the contents (chmod -R). But the database remains read-only for the users that didn’t create it.

Did I overlook something or is this not possible due to the design of the encrypted database?

Please note that only one user should open the database at the same time.

This might work:

  1. Quit DEVONthink
  2. Change the database’s extension from .dtSparse to .sparseimage
  3. Mount the sparse image in the Finder
  4. Enable the option to ignore the ownership on this volume in the Finder’s Info panel
  5. Unmount the volume
  6. Change the extension back to .dtSparse

Another and more secure possibility is that every user uses a local copy of the encrypted database that gets synchronized (e.g. via a local sync store in the Shared directory).

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