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TREK/wiki/Encryption-Key-Rotation.md
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Maurice 7da0080557 docs(wiki): bring the wiki in line with 4.0.0 (#2034)
* docs(wiki): correct the install and operations pages for 4.0.0

Quick Start passed docker an empty ENCRYPTION_KEY: an assignment prefix is not
expanded on the same command line, so the server silently generated its own key
instead of taking the one the page told you to set. The tag examples pinned to
the 3.x line, the documented tmpfs size did not match the shipped compose file,
and several .env values were described as reaching the container when compose
never interpolates them.

* docs(wiki): match the MCP reference to the registered surface

The scope table was missing the whole Collections group and the totals said 27
scopes across 13 groups where the code registers 29 across 14. The Cloudflare
link on the setup page pointed at an anchor on its own page instead of the
heading on Troubleshooting.

* docs(wiki): correct the plugin and admin pages

Three links to Plugin-Development carried a .md suffix, which does not resolve on
the wiki. The admin pages described tabs, permissions and storage behaviour that
had moved on.

* docs(wiki): bring the feature pages back in line with the app

Costs still documented the old panel, where categories could be added, renamed,
reordered and deleted; they are fixed now and the panel is a day-grouped ledger
with settlements. Trip sharing, journeys, maps, packing, reservations and the
account pages had all drifted in the same way.

* docs(wiki): cover the pages the first pass did not reach

The MCP catalog listed 168 of the 201 registered tools; the settlement tools and
rate_place were missing here and the Collections family from the addon page.
Several resource rows claimed a trips:* scope where the handler asks for
trips:read.

* docs(wiki): tighten the corrections a review picked apart

The audit-log resource is the row id, not the credential id; an admin password
reset does not bump password_version the way the page implied; and a few of the
new paragraphs described behaviour more confidently than the code supports.

* docs(wiki): fix what a last read-through caught

Costs shows every figure in your display currency, not the trip's, and an
expense with no payer still counts against the members it is split between.
Studio's cutoff is a 1024px viewport rather than phones alone, and the
Integrations tab is gated on the providers an admin has configured.

* docs(wiki): the last few the review caught

A passkey satisfies the MFA policy everywhere except the WebSocket handshake,
which still asks for TOTP, so a passkey-only account under that policy gets no
live updates. Mobile optimizes a day from two places, not three. The ctx.db row
carried an unescaped pipe that split the table, and the Backups table linked
with a wiki link whose pipe did the same.
2026-08-25 12:36:52 +02:00

5.6 KiB

Encryption Key Rotation

What the encryption key protects

TREK encrypts sensitive settings at rest using AES-256-GCM. The following values are stored encrypted in the database:

  • Google Maps API key (instance-wide, in app_settings; the per-user column is still read as a fallback)
  • Unsplash access key (instance-wide, in app_settings; the per-user column is still read as a fallback)
  • Mapbox access token (per user)
  • OpenWeather API key (per user)
  • Immich API key (per user)
  • AirTrail API key (per user)
  • Synology Photos password, session ID, and device ID (per user)
  • Per-user webhook URL, ntfy notification token, and LLM provider API key (in settings table)
  • OIDC client secret (global, in app_settings)
  • SMTP password (global, in app_settings)
  • Admin webhook URL and admin ntfy token (global, in app_settings)
  • MFA (TOTP) secrets for all users
  • Photo passphrases for Synology shared-link photos (in trek_photos)
  • Passphrases for shared trip album links (in trip_album_links)
  • S3 storage backend secret access keys (in app_settings['storage.backends']; see Admin-Storage)
  • Plugin OAuth access and refresh tokens, plus every plugin settings field the plugin's manifest marks secret (instance scope in plugins.config, user scope in plugin_user_config.config)

The encryption derives a key from ENCRYPTION_KEY using SHA-256 (with a domain suffix per secret type), so the raw ENCRYPTION_KEY value is never stored in the database.

Key resolution order

On startup, TREK resolves the encryption key in this order:

  1. ENCRYPTION_KEY environment variable — explicit, always takes priority. When set, the value is also written to ./data/.encryption_key so it survives container restarts if the env var is later removed.
  2. ./data/.encryption_key file — present on any install that has started at least once.
  3. ./data/.jwt_secret file — one-time fallback for older installs that pre-date the dedicated encryption key. The value is immediately persisted to ./data/.encryption_key so future JWT rotations cannot break decryption.
  4. Auto-generated — fresh install with none of the above. A random 32-byte hex key is generated and written to ./data/.encryption_key.

What happens if the key is lost

All encrypted settings (API keys, SMTP password, OIDC secret, MFA secrets, notification tokens, etc.) become unreadable — TREK cannot decrypt them. They must be re-entered manually after the key is restored or replaced. Unencrypted data (trips, places, users, etc.) is unaffected.

Backing up the key

Unless you set ENCRYPTION_KEY in the environment, your backup ZIP does include the encryption key: ./data/.encryption_key is bundled into every archive, manual and automatic, as a root-level .encryption_key entry, so a restore onto a different install can still decrypt the stored secrets. That makes the ZIP exactly as sensitive as the key itself — store and transfer it accordingly.

On installs that supply the key through the environment the file is not the source of truth, so no backup carries it. Keep it somewhere separate — for example, in a password manager or a secrets manager. See Backups.

To find your current key: check the ENCRYPTION_KEY environment variable or read ./data/.encryption_key.

Rotating the key

Use scripts/migrate-encryption.ts to re-encrypt all stored secrets without downtime or manual re-entry.

Docker:

docker exec -it -w /app/server trek node --import tsx scripts/migrate-encryption.ts

Host (run from the server/ directory):

node --import tsx scripts/migrate-encryption.ts

The script:

  1. Prompts for the old and new encryption keys interactively (keys are never echoed to the terminal or written to shell history).
  2. Asks for confirmation before making any changes.
  3. Creates a timestamped backup of the database (e.g. travel.db.backup-1713484800000) before modifying anything.
  4. Re-encrypts all stored secrets across all tables:
    • app_settings: oidc_client_secret, smtp_pass, admin_webhook_url, admin_ntfy_token, maps_api_key, unsplash_api_key
    • app_settings['storage.backends']: the secretAccessKey of every S3 storage backend
    • users (per user): maps_api_key, unsplash_api_key, openweather_api_key, immich_api_key, synology_password, synology_sid, synology_did, airtrail_api_key, mfa_secret
    • settings (per user): webhook_url, ntfy_token, mapbox_access_token, llm_api_key
    • plugin_oauth_tokens: access_token, refresh_token (per plugin and user)
    • plugins.config and plugin_user_config.config: every settings field a plugin's manifest marks secret, resolved per plugin and scope from plugin_settings_fields
    • trip_album_links: passphrase
    • trek_photos: passphrase
  5. Reports counts of migrated, already-migrated, skipped (empty), and errored values.

After a successful migration:

  1. Update ENCRYPTION_KEY in your environment to the new value.
  2. Restart TREK.

If any secrets could not be migrated, the script exits with a non-zero status and the original database backup is retained.

Upgrading from very old versions

Old installs may have used ./data/.jwt_secret as the encryption source (before a dedicated ENCRYPTION_KEY was introduced). The key resolution chain above handles this automatically on startup — the JWT secret is read, immediately written to ./data/.encryption_key, and JWT rotation is then safe without breaking decryption.

See also