Encrypting Temporary Files¶

For InnoDB user-created temporary tables, created in a temporary tablespace file, use the innodb_temp_tablespace_encrypt variable.

variable innodb_temp_tablespace_encrypt¶

Command Line:	innodb-temp-tablespace-encrypt
Dynamic:	Yes
Scope:	Global
Variable Type:	Boolean
Default Value:	OFF

When this variable is set to ON, the server encrypts the global temporary tablespace (:file: ibtmp* files) and the session temporary tablespaces (:file: #innodb_temp/temp_*.ibt files). The variable does not enforce the encryption of currently open temporary files and does not rebuild the system temporary tablespace to encrypt data which has already been written.

The CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE does not support the ENCRYPTION clause. The TABLESPACE clause cannot be set to innodb_temporary.

The global temporary tablespace datafile ibtmp1 contains temporary table undo logs while intrinsic temporary tables and user-created temporary tables are located in the encrypted session temporary tablespace.

To create new temporary tablespaces unencrypted, the following variables must be set to OFF at runtime:

• innodb_temp_tablespace_encrypt
• default_table_encryption

Any existing encrypted user-created temporary files and intrinsic temporary tables remain in an encrypted session.

Temporary tables are only destroyed when the session is disconnected.

The default_table_encryption setting in my.cnf determines if a temporary table is encrypted.

If the innodb_temp_tablespace_encrypt = “OFF” and the default_table_encryption =”ON”, the user-created temporary tables are encrypted. The temporary tablespace datafile ibtmp1, which contains undo logs, is not encrypted.

If the innodb_temp_tablespace_encrypt is “ON” for the system tablespace, InnoDB generates an encryption key and encrypts the system temporary tablespace. If you reset the encryption to “OFF”, all subsequent pages are written to an unencrypted tablespace. Any generated keys are not erased to allow encrypted tables and undo data to be decrypted.

Temporary files are currently used in Percona Server for MySQL for the following purposes:

• Filesort - for example, when you run a SELECT statement with SQL_BIG_RESULT hints
• Binary log transactional caches
• Group Replication caches

For each temporary file, an encryption key is generated locally and only maintained in memory for the lifetime of the temporary file and the key is discarded afterwards.