Re: [Proposal] Table-level Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and KeyManagement Service (KMS) - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On 7/11/19 9:05 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 08:41:52PM -0400, Joe Conway wrote:
>> On 7/11/19 6:37 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> > Our first implementation will encrypt the entire cluster.  We can later
>> > consider encryption per table or tablespace.  It is unclear if
>> > encrypting different parts of the system with different keys is useful
>> > or feasible.  (This is separate from key rotation.)
>>
>> I still object strongly to using a single key for the entire database. I
>> think we can use a single key for WAL, but we need some way to split the
>> heap so that multiple keys are used. If not by tablespace, then some
>> other method.
>
> What do you base this on?

I have stated this more than once, and you and Stephen discussed it
earlier as well, but will find all the links back into the thread and
references and address in a separate email.

>> Regardless of the method to split the heap into different keys, I think
>> there should be an option for some tables to not be encrypted. If we
>> decide it must be all or nothing for the first implementation I guess I
>> could live with it but would be very disappointed.
>
> What does it mean you "could live this it"?  Why do you consider having
> some tables unencrypted important?


I think it is pretty obvious isn't it? You have talked about the
performance impact. Why would I want to encrypt, for example a lookup
table, if there is nothing in that table warranting encryption?

I think in many if not most applications the sensitive data is limited
to much less than all of the tables, and I'd rather not take the hit for
those tables.


>> The keys themselves should be in an file which is encrypted by a master
>> key. Obtaining the master key should be pattern it after the GUC
>> ssl_passphrase_command.
>>
>> > We will use CBC AES128 mode for tables/indexes, and CTR AES128 for WAL.
>> > 8k pages will use the LSN as a nonce, which will be encrypted to
>> > generate the initialization vector (IV).  We will not encrypt the first
>> > 16 bytes of each pages so the LSN can be used in this way.  The WAL will
>> > use the WAL file segment number as the nonce and the IV will be created
>> > in the same way.
>>
>> I vote for AES 256 rather than 128.
>
> Why?  This page seems to think 128 is sufficient:


Addressed in the other email


>> Thinking out loud (and I believe somewhere in this massive thread
>> someone else already said this), if we had a way to flag "key version"
>> at the page level it seems like we could potentially rekey page-by-page
>> while online, locking only one page at a time. We really only need to
>> support 2 key versions and could ping-pong between them as they change.
>> Or maybe this is a crazy idea.
>
> Yes, we did talk about this.  It is certainly possible, but we would
> still need a tool to guarantee all pages are using the new version, so I
> am not sure what per-page buys us except making the later check faster.
> I don't see this as a version-1 feature, frankly.

If we allow for say, 2 versions of the key to exist at any given time,
and if we could store that key version information on each page, we
could change the key from old to new without locking the entire table at
once, just locking one page at a time. Or at least that was my thinking.

Joe
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