Re: Proposed patch for key management

On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 12:47:19PM +0000, Alastair Turner wrote:
> If keys can have arbitrary scope, then the pg backend won't know what
> to ask for. So the API becomes even simpler with no specific request
> on stdin and all the relevant keys on stdout. I generally like this
> approach as well, and it will be the only option for some
> integrations. On the other hand, there is an advantage to having the
> key retrieval piece of key management in-process - the keys are not
> being passed around in plain.
>
> There is also a further validation task - probably beyond the scope of
> the key management patch and into the encryption patch[es] territory -
> checking that the keys supplied are the same keys in use for the data
> currently on disk. It feels to me like this should be done at startup,
> rather than as each file is accessed, which could make startup quite
> slow if there are a lot of keys with narrow scope.

We do that already on startup by using GCM to validate the KEK when
encrypting each DEK.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB https://enterprisedb.com

The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee