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From: Laurenz Albe <[email protected]>
To: Bruce Momjian <[email protected]>
Cc: Kai Wagner <[email protected]>
Cc: Chris Travers <[email protected]>
Cc: Christophe Pettus <[email protected]>
Cc: Clay Jackson (cjackson) <[email protected]>
Cc: pgsql-general <[email protected]>
Cc: Ron Johnson <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Enquiry about TDE with PgSQL
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2025 06:40:26 +0100
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
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	<CAG0qCNjd2m9Ej1ZEwuCCkgsqJz0vnso3ZFwjKCxzwUfnfu=SNw@mail.gmail.com>
	<[email protected]>
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	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>

On Mon, 2025-11-03 at 21:05 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Mon, Nov  3, 2025 at 07:42:06PM +0100, Laurenz Albe wrote:
> 
> > Since you say that encrypting the temp files is the biggest hurdle for
> > community acceptance, what about a first version that does not encrypt
> > temp files?  For one, that will be good for encrypted backups (which is
> > one of the good use cases for TDE), and then you could argue that temp
> > files are not data *at rest*, so data-at-rest-encryption does not apply
> > to them.  Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither were parallel query
> > or declarative partitioning.
> 
> Uh, people will say that if the solution is not 100% secure in its
> coverage, it is much less useful and therefore not worth it.

Some people will doubtless say that.  Others will consider the checkbox
requirement satisfied and use it.  Yet others will consider a mislaid
backup their biggest problem and will consider TDE a technically useful
solution.

9.6, which introduced parallel query, only supported it for sequential
scans, which was much less useful than what we have today.  I for one
wouldn't consider an implementation of TDE with some features missing
"not worth it".  If anything, I consider the marginal security improvement
that TDE as a whole provides not worth it.  But I am sold on the claim
that having TDE would promote the adoption of PostgreSQL.  

I am curious what others think.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe






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