HP UX Red Hat Direry Server Software manual Encryption Keys, Database Encryption

Database Encryption

For highly sensitive information, this potential for information loss could present a significant security risk. In order to remove that security risk, Directory Server allows portions of its database to be encrypted. Once encrypted, the data are safe even in the event that an attacker has a copy of the server's database files.

Database encryption allows attributes to be encrypted in the database. Both encryption and the encryption cipher are configurable per attribute per backend. When configured, every instance of a particular attribute, even index data, is encrypted for every entry stored in that database.

NOTE

To enable database encryption on an attribute with existing stored data, export the database to LDIF first, then make the configuration change, then re-import the data to the database. The server does not enforce consistency between encryption configuration and stored data; therefore, pay careful attention that all existing data are exported before enabling or disabling encryption.

Indexed attributes may be encrypted, and database encryption is fully compatible with indexing. The contents of the index files that are normally derived from attribute values are also encrypted to prevent an attacker from recovering part or all of the encrypted data from an analysis of the indexes.

Since the server pre-encrypts all index keys before looking up an index for an encrypted attribute, there is some effect on server performance for searches that make use of an encrypted index, but the effect is not serious enough that it is no longer worthwhile to use an index.

2.3.1. Encryption Keys

In order to use database encryption, the server must be configured for SSL and have SSL enabled because database encryption uses the server's SSL encryption key and the same PIN input methods as SSL. The PIN must either be entered manually upon server startup or a PIN file must be used.

Randomly generated symmetric cipher keys are used to encrypt and decrypt attribute data. A separate key is used for each configured cipher. These keys are wrapped using the public key from the server's SSL certificate, and the resulting wrapped key is stored within the server's configuration files. The effective strength of the database encryption is never higher than the strength of the server's SSL key used for wrapping. Without access to the server's private key, it is not possible to recover the symmetric keys from the wrapped copies.

CAUTION

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