There are actually two answers to that: * You can split the key between different persons, and you can even implement "n of k" schemes, like you specify (at ke

There are actually two answers to that: * You can split the key between different persons, and you can even implement "n of k" schemes, like you specify (at key creation time) that you need any 4 out of 9 shards to unseal the vault. You can then keep those shards on separate operator's laptops, in separate backup systems etc. * You can use a hardware security module to unseal the vault (support for that is not included in the free version, IIRC). But even if the vault wasn't stored encrypted, it'd still be a huge improvement over "keys on NFS", because only machine administrators get access to the whole DB, and you can limit and audit the access of everybody else in a sane manner.