# Avoiding information leakage in multi-host deployments

**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/avoiding-information-leakage-in-multi-host-deployments/29926
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [July 2, 2023, 1:22pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/avoiding-information-leakage-in-multi-host-deployments/29926 "2023-07-02T13:22:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 7

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### Author: ![iFreilicht](https://discourse.nixos.org/user_avatar/discourse.nixos.org/ifreilicht/32/9702_2.png) [@iFreilicht](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/iFreilicht)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2023, 11:20am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/avoiding-information-leakage-in-multi-host-deployments/29926/7 "2023-07-14T11:20:53Z")

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> [@mindsbackyard](#):
>
> Were multi-user setups not part of the original use cases & requirements for nix?

Well they kind-of were, the security aspects were even mentioned in the original thesis from 2006, though the initial focus was on reproducibility, and this is only possible with a public, world-readable store. I believe containers weren’t much of a thing at that point yet, so the scenarios for service deployments were actual servers that you as an admin had control over, and in the initial development stage of linux, multi-user setups didn’t exist _at all_.

The current multi-user setup with the Nix Daemon and build users was already planned, but took a while to materialize, I think it only became the recommended installation method a few years ago.

Right now the focus (AFAICT) is on implementing [content addressed store paths](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/content-addressed-nix-call-for-testers/12881) to at least allow for safe sharing of build artifacts between users.

> [@mindsbackyard](#):
>
> I’d even go so far to say that true, non-rotatable secrets (e.g. personal data) shouldn’t ever be pushed to a public git repository—even in encrypted form. The encryption might protect you now, but what about 10y down the line? Will the algorithms (& implementations!) still be unbroken? (esp. asymmetric encryption schemes—which probably won’t be used to protect data at rest) Depending on what you are trying to protect and for what time-period, public access to encrypted information can still become an issue.

That’s a good point.

Ideally, you’d only deploy a single access key (separately from Nix, of course) and manage the secrets in a separate service like Hashicorp Vault or Bitwarden Secrets Manager.

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