considerations.rst

Considerations
==============

CryptOps is a tool that can be used to raise the level of security in some
particular aspects. It does not provide all-round security of your VPS.

CryptOps can be used as a part of an overall security strategy and should never
be used as definitive security solution.

Possible reasons to use CryptOps
--------------------------------

* You want to make it harder for the hoster's employees to casually view your
  data on disk.
* You trust your hoster now, but you want to have an easy way to cut off their
  access to your data – maybe when they change owners, or when you anticipate
  that they are forced by some authority to grant access to your data.
* You want your data to be safe in case the hosters disks get confiscated,
  stolen, or discarded without shredding.
* You want your data to be encrypted at rest.

Invalid reasons to use CryptOps
-------------------------------

* You don't trust your hoster, or you fear that they may be forced to grant
  access to your data without a timely warning. If your hoster or a powerful
  third party really wants to view your data, they could

    * install a modified version of CryptOps that doesn't really encrypt;
    * man-in-the-middle your first ssh connection to the server running in the
      initrd, capturing your encryption password when you first enter it;
    * access your decrypted data in memory while your vps is active;
    * various other methods.

It is very hard to prevent someone who has access (physical or via network) to
the host running your vps from reading your data, and CryptOps does not pretend
to do so.

Possible reasons to not use CryptOps
------------------------------------

* It increases the chance of data loss: if you forget or lose your encryption
  password, a single reboot of your vps (for whatever reason) renders your data
  irrecoverably lost.
* It can increase downtime of your vps: whenever your vps reboots, you need to
  become aware of this (though we have a customisable hook to notify you of this
  situation), connect to the vps, and enter your encryption password; only then
  can the boot process of the vps continue. All this time the service provided
  by your vps is not running.
* You may not need full disk encryption of your vps: depending on the software
  running on your vps, it could be easier to encrypt only some data directories.
  On the other hand, it is easy to overlook some sensitive data stored in
  configuration, cache files, temporary files, etc.