Encryption

ormar provides you with a way to encrypt a field in the database only. Provided encryption backends allow for both one-way encryption (HASH backend) as well as both-way encryption/decryption (FERNET backend).

Warning

Note that in order for encryption to work you need to install optional cryptography package.

You can do it manually pip install cryptography or with ormar by pip install ormar[crypto]

Warning

Note that adding encrypt_backend changes the database column type to TEXT, which needs to be reflected in db either by migration (alembic) or manual change

Defining a field encryption

To encrypt a field you need to pass at minimum encrypt_secret and encrypt_backend parameters.

class Filter(ormar.Model):
    class Meta(BaseMeta):
        tablename = "filters"

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100, 
                             encrypt_secret="secret123", 
                             encrypt_backend=ormar.EncryptBackends.FERNET)

Warning

You can encrypt all Field types apart from primary_key column and relation columns (ForeignKey and ManyToMany). Check backends details for more information.

Available backends

HASH

HASH is a one-way hash (like for password), never decrypted on retrieval

To set it up pass appropriate backend value.

... # rest of model definition
password: str = ormar.String(max_length=128,
                         encrypt_secret="secret123", 
                         encrypt_backend=ormar.EncryptBackends.HASH)

Note that since this backend never decrypt the stored value it's only applicable for String fields. Used hash is a sha512 hash, so the field length has to be >=128.

Warning

Note that in HASH backend you can filter by full value but filters like contain will not work as comparison is make on encrypted values

Note

Note that provided encrypt_secret is first hashed itself and used as salt, so in order to compare to stored string you need to recreate this steps. The order_by will not work as encrypted strings are compared so you cannot reliably order by.

class Hash(ormar.Model):
    class Meta(BaseMeta):
        tablename = "hashes"

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=128,
                             encrypt_secret="udxc32",
                             encrypt_backend=ormar.EncryptBackends.HASH)


await Hash(name='test1').save()

# note the steps to recreate the stored value
# you can use also cryptography package instead of hashlib
secret = hashlib.sha256("udxc32".encode()).digest()
secret = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(secret)
hashed_test1 = hashlib.sha512(secret + 'test1'.encode()).hexdigest()

# full value comparison works
hash1 = await Hash.objects.get(name='test1')
assert hash1.name == hashed_test1

# but partial comparison does not (hashed strings are compared)
with pytest.raises(NoMatch):
    await Filter.objects.get(name__icontains='test')

FERNET

FERNET is a two-way encrypt/decrypt backend

To set it up pass appropriate backend value.

... # rest of model definition
year: int = ormar.Integer(encrypt_secret="secret123", 
                          encrypt_backend=ormar.EncryptBackends.FERNET)

Value is encrypted on way to database end decrypted on way out. Can be used on all types, as the returned value is parsed to corresponding python type.

Warning

Note that in FERNET backend you loose filtering possibility altogether as part of the encrypted value is a timestamp. The same goes for order_by as encrypted strings are compared so you cannot reliably order by.

class Filter(ormar.Model):
    class Meta(BaseMeta):
        tablename = "filters"

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100, 
                             encrypt_secret="asd123", 
                             encrypt_backend=ormar.EncryptBackends.FERNET)

await Filter(name='test1').save()
await Filter(name='test1').save()

# values are properly encrypted and later decrypted
filters = await Filter.objects.all()
assert filters[0].name == filters[1].name == 'test1'

# but you cannot filter at all since part of the fernet hash is a timestamp
# which means that even if you encrypt the same string 2 times it will be different
with pytest.raises(NoMatch):
    await Filter.objects.get(name='test1')

Custom Backends

If you wish to support other type of encryption (i.e. AES) you can provide your own EncryptionBackend.

To setup a backend all you need to do is subclass ormar.fields.EncryptBackend class and provide required backend.

Sample dummy backend (that does nothing) can look like following:

class DummyBackend(ormar.fields.EncryptBackend):
    def _initialize_backend(self, secret_key: bytes) -> None:
        pass

    def encrypt(self, value: Any) -> str:
        return value

    def decrypt(self, value: Any) -> str:
        return value

To use this backend set encrypt_backend to CUSTOM and provide your backend as argument by encrypt_custom_backend.

class Filter(ormar.Model):
    class Meta(BaseMeta):
        tablename = "filters"

    id: int = ormar.Integer(primary_key=True)
    name: str = ormar.String(max_length=100, 
                             encrypt_secret="secret123", 
                             encrypt_backend=ormar.EncryptBackends.CUSTOM,
                             encrypt_custom_backend=DummyBackend
                             )