Aria Encryption Overview

Introduction to encrypting Aria tables, covering the necessary system variables (`aria_encrypt_tables`, `encrypt_tmp_disk_tables`) and how to verify encryption status by inspecting data files.

MariaDB can encrypt data in tables that use the Aria storage engine. This includes both user-created tables and internal on-disk temporary tables that use the Aria storage engine. This ensures that your Aria data is only accessible through MariaDB.

For encryption with the InnoDB and XtraDB storage engines, see Encrypting Data for InnoDB/XtraDB.

Basic Configuration

In order to enable encryption for tables using the Aria storage engine, there are a couple server system variables that you need to set and configure. Most users will want to set aria_encrypt_tables and encrypt_tmp_disk_tables.

Users of data-at-rest encryption will also need to have a key management and encryption plugin configured. Some examples are File Key Management Plugin and AWS Key Management Plugin.

[mariadb]
...

# File Key Management
plugin_load_add = file_key_management
file_key_management_filename = /etc/mysql/encryption/keyfile.enc
file_key_management_filekey = FILE:/etc/mysql/encryption/keyfile.key
file_key_management_encryption_algorithm = AES_CTR

# Aria Encryption
aria_encrypt_tables=ON
encrypt_tmp_disk_tables=ON

Determining Whether a Table is Encrypted

The InnoDB storage engine has the information_schema.INNODB_TABLESPACES_ENCRYPTION table that can be used to get information about which tables are encrypted. Aria does not currently have anything like that (see MDEV-17324 about that).

To determine whether an Aria table is encrypted, you currently have to search the data file for some plain text that you know is in the data.

For example, let's say that we have the following table:

SELECT * FROM db1.aria_tab LIMIT 1;
+----+------+
| id | str  |
+----+------+
|  1 | str1 |
+----+------+
1 row IN SET (0.00 sec

Then, we could search the data file that belongs to db1.aria_tab for str1 using a command-line tool, such as strings:

$ sudo strings /var/lib/mysql/db1/aria_tab.MAD | grep "str1"
str1

If you can find the plain text of the string, then you know that the table is not encrypted.

Encryption and the Aria Log

Only Aria tables are currently encrypted. The Aria log is not yet encrypted. See MDEV-8587 about that.

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