Choosing an Encryption Plugin

Overview

MariaDB Enterprise Server and MariaDB Community Server support data-at-rest encryption, which secures data on the file system. The server and storage engines encrypt data before writing and decrypt during reads, ensuring that the data is only unencrypted when accessed directly through the server.

They support multiple encryption plugins, which are suited for different use cases.

Encryption Plugin	Description
HashiCorp Vault	It integrates with HashiCorp Vault It supports key rotation It securely communicates with the remote KMS using TLS.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) KMS	It integrates with AWS KMS It supports key rotation It must be compiled from source
File Key Management	Stores encryption keys in a local plain-text key file The plain-text key file can be encrypted It does not support key rotation.

Feature	HashiCorp Vault	Amazon Web Services (AWS) KMS	File Key Management\
Supported by MariaDB Enterprise Server	Yes	Yes	Yes
Supported by MariaDB Community Server	No	Yes	Yes
Supports key rotation	Yes	Yes	No

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