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  1. Core Server
  2. SERVER-21620

Add startup warning if ESE at-rest encryption enabled but CPU lacks hardware AES-NI support

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    • Icon: Improvement Improvement
    • Resolution: Unresolved
    • Icon: Major - P3 Major - P3
    • None
    • 3.2.0-rc3
    • Security
    • Server Security

    Description

      The ESE at-rest encryption feature takes advantage of OpenSSL's ability to use hardware AES acceleration ("AES-NI"), if available. However, this means that if AES-NI is not available, a software fallback will be used which will likely have noticably large impact on performance. Therefore, if the server is started with ESE at-rest encryption enabled, and the CPU lacks support for AES-NI instructions, then the server should alert the user with a startup warning.

      Unfortunately checking CPU capabilities may require platform specific code. OpenSSL may have an abstraction that can do this, and return if AES-NI will be used. Otherwise, this will need to be checked manually, eg. checking /proc/cpuinfo on Linux.

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            backlog-server-security Backlog - Security Team
            kevin.pulo@mongodb.com Kevin Pulo
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              Created:
              Updated: