Re: GSSAPI encryption support

Greetings,

* Raj kumar (rajkumar820999(at)gmail(dot)com) wrote:
> 1) The encryption support means that the encryption between the Client and
> the Server over the network, which was previously possible only through SSL
> or previously, not encrypted at all. Now, instead of SSL, we can change
> pg_hba.conf with the parameters "hostgssenc" and hostnogssenc" to support
> encryption over the network directly using gssapi.

Yes.

> 2) We need to have a client server, a service server and a Key Distribution
> Center Server which should have Kerberose installed in it. Kerberose is
> available as opensource.

Not sure what you mean by 'client server' and 'service server' here,
but, yes you do need a client, a PG server, and a KDC. There's multiple
Kerberos implementations available as open source- MIT Kerberos and
Heimdal are the popular ones.

> Please help me if my understanding is correct and let me know about the
> major improvement on this feature with PG12. I have referred Documentation
> and some blogs. But, couldn't get the right picture. Your reply is
> appreciable.

As usual, you'll want to run the most recent minor version of PG,
particularly when working with new features. We've had a few issues in
the GSSAPI encryption which have been fixed in the latest PG12 minor
release (12.3).

Generally speaking, if you've got a Kerberos environment and have PG
working with Kerberos, GSSAPI encryption will just start happening,
though it is recommended to use the 'hostgssenc' lines on the server
side pg_hba.conf, as you mention, and on the client side set
'gssencmode=require' on the client, to ensure the communication will
be using GSSAPI encryption (the default is only 'prefer', similar to
SSL).

Thanks,

Stephen