Re: storing an explicit nonce

From: Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>
To: Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net>
Cc: Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org>, Masahiko Sawada <sawada(dot)mshk(at)gmail(dot)com>, Tom Kincaid <tomjohnkincaid(at)gmail(dot)com>, Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de>, Amit Kapila <amit(dot)kapila16(at)gmail(dot)com>, Thomas Munro <thomas(dot)munro(at)gmail(dot)com>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>, Masahiko Sawada <masahiko(dot)sawada(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>
Subject: Re: storing an explicit nonce
Date: 2021-05-25 21:12:05
Message-ID: 20210525211205.GJ3048@momjian.us
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On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 05:04:50PM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
> > Now, if we want to consult some security experts and have them tell us
> > the hint bit visibility is not a problem, we could get by without using a
> > new nonce for hint bit changes, and in that case it doesn't matter if we
> > have a separate LSN or custom nonce --- it doesn't get changed for hint
> > bit changes.
>
> I do think it's reasonable to consider having hint bits not included in
> the encrypted part of the page and therefore remove the need to produce
> a new nonce for each hint bit change. Naturally, there's always an
> increased risk when any data in the system isn't encrypted but given
> the other parts of the system which aren't being encrypted as part of
> this effort it hardly seems like a significant increase of overall risk.
> I don't believe that any of the auditors and security teams I've
> discussed TDE with would have issue with hint bits not being encrypted-
> the principle concern has always been the primary data.

OK, this is good to know. I know the never-reuse rule, so it is good to
know it can be relaxed for certain data without causing problems in
other places. Should I modify my patch to do this?

FYI, technically, the hint bit is still encrypted, but could _flip_ in
the encrypted file if changed, so that's why we say it is visible. If
we used a block cipher instead of a streaming one (CTR), this might not
work because the earlier blocks can be based in the output of later
blocks.

> Naturally, the more we are able to encrypt and the more we can do to
> provide data integrity validation, may open up the possibility for PG to
> be used in even more places, which argues for having some way of making
> these choices be options which a user could decide at initdb time, or at
> least contemplating a road map to where we could offer users the option
> to have other parts of the system be encrypted and ideally have data
> integrity checks, but I don't think we necessarily have to solve
> everything right now in that regard- just having TDE in some form will
> open up quite a few new possibilities for v15, even if it doesn't
> include data integrity validation beyond our existing checksums and
> doesn't encrypt hint bits.

I am thinking full-file system encryption should still be used by people
needing that. I am concerned that if we add too many
restrictions/additions on this feature, it will not be very useful.

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

If only the physical world exists, free will is an illusion.

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