nextcloud / nextcloud/server

Migration path for legacy encrypted files

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#27,501 3 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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1. to develop enhancement feature: encryption (server-side)
Dominant language
PHP
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Description

With https://github.com/nextcloud/server/pull/22218 we added the ability to disable decryption of files using the legacy cipher. While it allows admins to scan for files where the header is missing, we currently lack a migration path to fully drop the old code path at some point.

For master key encryption we could just re-encrypt those files in an occ command, though for setups where there is no master key we cannot do that so that would basically mean we never can drop it without the possibility to make files inaccessible. Though a migration command for master key setups might still make sense.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading pull request #22218 and the legacy-cipher handling it introduced. Trace how files with missing headers and master-key setups are identified, then define a migration command or path that preserves access; done requires a safe plan for both master-key and no-master-key configurations.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
backend, cryptography
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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