Secure storage

What it is

A secure storage is a single encrypted file (.pvault) on your disk that Panora Navigator works with as a drive. Give its password and it opens as a file list; lock it and nothing about what is inside can be read from the file.

Make a storage

Set a panel to Secure storage. The panel opens on your storages.

Press F7, or New storage, and give it a name, a place for its file, and a password. The folder button adds a storage file that is on the disk already, for example one copied from another computer.

Open, use, lock

• Enter opens a storage, asking for the password when it is locked.
• Inside, it is a file list with the usual keys. F5 and F6 copy and move between the storage and the disk, within it, or to another storage.
• F3 and F4 show and edit a file without writing an unprotected copy to the disk.
• F4 on the list of storages, or the lock in an open storage's toolbar, locks it. Closing the app locks all of them.

"Open" (Enter on a file) hands the file to another program, which needs a real file: an unprotected copy is written to the temporary folder and removed when the storage is locked. Use F3 or F4 when that must not happen.

How it is protected

• The file is sealed with AES-256-GCM under a random key.
• That key is unwrapped by your password using scrypt, which makes guessing passwords slow.
• File names, sizes and contents are all inside the sealed file.
• A changed byte is noticed when the storage is opened.

What to remember

• A forgotten password cannot be recovered. There is no back door and no reset.
• Deleting inside a storage is for good: it has no recycle bin.
• The storage is one file. Back it up like any other important file; the copy is as protected as the original.