Data Decryption
You might need to decrypt data from an encrypted Dgraph cluster for a variety of reasons, including:
- Migration of data from an encrypted cluster to a non-encrypted cluster
- Changing your data or schema by directly editing an RDF file or schema file
To support these scenarios, Dgraph includes a decrypt command that decrypts encrypted RDF and schema files. To learn how to export RDF
and schema files from Dgraph, see:
Dgraph Administration: Export database.
The decrypt command supports a variety of symmetric key lengths, which
determine the AES cypher used for encryption and decryption, as follows:
| Symmetric key length | AES encryption cypher |
|---|---|
| 128 bits (16-bytes) | AES-128 |
| 192 bits (24-bytes) | AES-192 |
| 256 bits (32-bytes) | AES-256 |
The decrypt command also supports the use of Hashicorp Vault to store secrets, including support for Vault’s
AppRole authentication.
Decryption options
The following decryption options (or flags) are available for the decrypt command:
| Flag or Superflag | Superflag Option | Notes |
|---|---|---|
--encryption |
key-file |
Encryption key filename |
-f, --file |
Path to file for the encrypted RDF or schema .gz file | |
-h, --help |
Help for the decrypt command | |
-o, --out |
Path to file for the decrypted .gz file that decrypt creates | |
--vault |
addr |
Vault server address, in http://<ip-address>:<port> format (default: http://localhost:8200 ) |
enc-field |
Name of the Vault server’s key/value store field that holds the Base64 encryption key | |
enc-format |
Vault server field format; can be raw or base64 (default: base64) |
|
path |
Vault server key/value store path (default: secret/data/dgraph) |
|
role-id-file |
File containing the Vault role_id used for AppRole authentication |
|
secret-id-file |
File containing the Vault secret_id used for AppRole authentication |
To learn more about the --vault superflag and its options that have replaced the --vault_* options in release v20.11 and earlier, see
Dgraph CLI Command Reference.
Data decryption examples
For example, you could use the following command with an encrypted RDF file (encrypted.rdf.gz) and an encryption key file (enc_key_file), to create a decrypted RDF file:
# Encryption Key from the file path
dgraph decrypt --file "encrypted.rdf.gz" --out "decrypted_rdf.gz" --encryption key-file="enc-key-file"
# Encryption Key from HashiCorp Vault
dgraph decrypt --file "encrypted.rdf.gz" --out "decrypted_rdf.gz" \
--vault addr="http://localhost:8200";enc-field="enc_key";enc-format="raw";path="secret/data/dgraph/alpha";role-id-file="./role_id";secret-id-file="./secret_id"
You can use similar syntax to create a decrypted schema file:
# Encryption Key from the file path
dgraph decrypt --file "encrypted.schema.gz" --out "decrypted_schema.gz" --encryption key-file="enc-key-file"
# Encryption Key from HashiCorp Vault
dgraph decrypt --file "encrypted.schema.gz" --out "decrypted_schema.gz" \
--vault addr="http://localhost:8200";enc-field="enc_key";enc-format="raw";path="secret/data/dgraph/alpha";role-id-file="./role_id";secret-id-file="./secret_id"