It is not clear that the user has to explicitly set the access method

[waltton]

I followed the instructions well enough to have the database up to run some tests, after realizing I had no performance drop I started reviewing the docs, when I got to the end of "Test Transparent Data Encryption" I got stuck for a while, from the docs it seems that I did everything right.

Maybe I missed it in some other place but I saw no mention that I had to set the access method for my test table explicitly, I assumed that the extension itself would set default_table_access_method and did not check.

I believe that other users not so familiar with access methods would struggle.

[ImTheKai]

Hey,

thanks a lot for your report. We've been working on a new updated version of the documentation, which is not yet the default.

Can you check it out and let us know if this makes it clearer?

https://percona-lab.github.io/postgres-tde-ext/main/setup.html

For now you do find the link here https://github.com/Percona-Lab/postgres-tde-ext?tab=readme-ov-file#documentation

[waltton]

Hi @capri1989

I found the new docs earlier, but I think that there is still something missing.

Point 3 gave me the impression that just by enabling the extension I would have the encryption enabled but that is not the case.

I think that in between current point 3 and 4 could be another point or hit saying something like:

CREATE EXTENSION pg_tde will enable the pg_tde access method. To enable encryption by default you need to set default_table_access_method to pg_tde Or specify the access method when creating a new table CREATE TABLE example (value TEXT) USING pg_tde

[ImTheKai]

Hi @waltton,

could you please take a look at the documentation PR that was created by @nastena1606? Does that make it clearer and looks alright?

https://github.com/Percona-Lab/postgres-tde-ext/pull/93

Thanks, Kai

[waltton]

Yes, I think that is very clear now.