Type:
Information
Summary:
You have a service or application secured with an encryption key that is retrieved from the Encryptionizer Key Manager server but the key does not appear to be delivered when the service or application starts up resulting in inaccessible encrypted data. This article reviews some troubleshooting steps you can take to determine the cause.
Additional Information:
Inaccessible encrypted data can be caused by different reasons. Review this KnowledgeBase article to see the other reasons your encrypted data might not be accessible.
KB #240102: Encrypted Databases not accessible
If the encrypted data is being accessed by a service or process secured using an encryption retrieved from the Encryptionizer Key Manager, you can explore these items for troubleshooting.
- Is the Encryptionizer Key Manager Client (NLMCLIENT) service running on the client machine? If it is not, then try starting it before attempting to restart the secured service or process.
- Look in the Application Event viewer, Event Source: Encryptionizer for error messages. Event ID: 3003 indicates that the client could not connect to the EKM server when trying to retrieve the key – networking issues unrelated to Encryptionizer could be involved, especially if the client machine has been successfully retrieving the key in the past and no changes were made to Encryptionizer settings.
- When you log onto the EKM Server and choose explore Clients, does this client appear in the list and online?
An asterisk (*) means a client machine was not activated on the EKM server. An exclamation point (!) means that the EKM server and EKM client are not communicating. This could be due to a networking issue. - If the client is running and the EKM server is showing that the client is online, try a restart of the secured service or process. If you are now able to access the data, it is possible that you have a timing issue that the SQL service started up before the EKM client (NLMCLIENT). You might consider making your secured service dependent upon successful start up of the EKM client (NLMCLIENT).