title: How to manage secret Key in java
body: <p>I am developing a Java cryptography application. I want to encrypt a file using symmetric algorithms such as AES or DES and store the secretKey in a database for future decryption of the file. I am wondering how to store the SecretKey object in a database table. Should I serialize the key object? (secretKey is serilaizable.) How to store serialized object in database? what MYSQL data type should I use?</p>
  
  <p>Another solution is to get the raw byte[] of key, convert it to base64 and store in database. I can later on decode the base64 key to the original Raw key, but the problem is in converting the raw key to SecretKey object.</p>
  
  <p>Any help would be highly appreciated.</p>