Re: Proposed patch for key management - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: Proposed patch for key management
Date
Msg-id 20201230234722.GA22199@momjian.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Proposed patch for key managment  (Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr>)
Responses Re: Proposed patch for key management
Re: Proposed patch for key management
List pgsql-hackers
On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 06:15:44PM -0400, Fabien COELHO wrote:
> The API should NOT make assumptions about the cryptographic design, what
> depends about what, where things are stored… ISTM that Pg should only care
> about naming keys, holding them when created/retrieved (but not create
> them), basically interacting with the key manager, passing the stuff to
> functions for encryption/decryption seen as black boxes.
> 
> I may have suggested something along these lines at the beginning of the key
> management thread, probably. Not going this way implicitely implies making
> some assumptions which may or may not suit other use cases, so makes them
> specific not generic. I do not think pg should do that.

I am not sure what else I can add to this discussion.  Having something
that is completely external might be a nice option, but I don't think it
is the common use-case, and will make the most common use cases more
complex.  Adding a pre-defined system will not prevent future work on a
completely external option.  I know archive_command is completely
external, but that is much simpler than what would need to be done for
key management, key rotation, and key verification.

I will say that if the community feels external-only should be the only
option, I will stop working on this feature because I feel the result
would be too fragile to be reliable, and I would not want to be
associated with it.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             https://enterprisedb.com

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




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