Re: PostgreSQL with SSL

Hello,

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 6:30 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Jose Berardo <joseberardo(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>>>> - Is it possible to store the server.key in a ciphered  file with
>
>>> No.
>
>> I believe that it may be a good idea, it may bring another security level,
>
> Not really.
>
>> Just saving the private key file inside the cluster with no privilegies for
>> other users (the server suggests 0600 mask for it) is still sufficient to
>> protected the key?
>
> If someone can access that file, they can also attach to the running
> server process and pull the decrypted key out of it.  In any case,
> providing the server with the key to decrypt the ssl key is not going
> to be convenient in operation.  You're not going to want to store that
> key on disk are you?  Do you want somebody around to manually provide
> it every time the server restarts?  That gets old pretty fast, when
> all it's buying you is a largely-imaginary security gain.
>
>                        regards, tom lane
>

Thanks Tom. Your few words were a very elucidative explanation.
I thought that attacking the running server process was much more
difficult than just open a file, and the needs of someone to provide
the symmetric key which will open the private key was just a question
of trade-off (security vs availability).

--
Regards,

Jose Berardo
Especializa Treinamentos
www.especializa.com.br
+55 81 3465.0032