open-vault/website/content/docs/secrets/transit.mdx

---
layout: docs
page_title: Transit - Secrets Engines
description: >-
  The transit secrets engine for Vault encrypts/decrypts data in-transit. It
  doesn't store any secrets.
---

# Transit Secrets Engine

The transit secrets engine handles cryptographic functions on data in-transit.
Vault doesn't store the data sent to the secrets engine. It can also be viewed
as "cryptography as a service" or "encryption as a service". The transit secrets
engine can also sign and verify data; generate hashes and HMACs of data; and act
as a source of random bytes.

The primary use case for `transit` is to encrypt data from applications while
still storing that encrypted data in some primary data store. This relieves the
burden of proper encryption/decryption from application developers and pushes
the burden onto the operators of Vault.

Key derivation is supported, which allows the same key to be used for multiple
purposes by deriving a new key based on a user-supplied context value. In this
mode, convergent encryption can optionally be supported, which allows the same
input values to produce the same ciphertext.

Datakey generation allows processes to request a high-entropy key of a given
bit length be returned to them, encrypted with the named key. Normally this will
also return the key in plaintext to allow for immediate use, but this can be
disabled to accommodate auditing requirements.

## Working Set Management

The Transit engine supports versioning of keys. Key versions that are earlier
than a key's specified `min_decryption_version` gets archived, and the rest of
the key versions belong to the working set. This is a performance consideration
to keep key loading fast, as well as a security consideration: by disallowing
decryption of old versions of keys, found ciphertext corresponding to obsolete
(but sensitive) data can not be decrypted by most users, but in an emergency
the `min_decryption_version` can be moved back to allow for legitimate
decryption.

Currently this archive is stored in a single storage entry. With some storage
backends, notably those using Raft or Paxos for HA capabilities, frequent
rotation may lead to a storage entry size for the archive that is larger than
the storage backend can handle. For frequent rotation needs, using named keys
that correspond to time bounds (e.g. five-minute periods floored to the closest
multiple of five) may provide a good alternative, allowing for several keys to
be live at once and a deterministic way to decide which key to use at any given
time.

## NIST Rotation Guidance

Periodic rotation of the encryption keys is recommended, even in the absence of
compromise. For AES-GCM keys, rotation should occur before approximately 2<sup>32</sup>
encryptions have been performed by a key version, following the guidelines of NIST
publication 800-38D. It is recommended that operators estimate the
encryption rate of a key and use that to determine a frequency of rotation
that prevents the guidance limits from being reached. For example, if one determines
that the estimated rate is 40 million operations per day, then rotating a key every
three months is sufficient.

## Key Types

As of now, the transit secrets engine supports the following key types (all key
types also generate separate HMAC keys):

- `aes128-gcm96`: AES-GCM with a 128-bit AES key and a 96-bit nonce; supports
  encryption, decryption, key derivation, and convergent encryption
- `aes256-gcm96`: AES-GCM with a 256-bit AES key and a 96-bit nonce; supports
  encryption, decryption, key derivation, and convergent encryption (default)
- `chacha20-poly1305`: ChaCha20-Poly1305 with a 256-bit key; supports
  encryption, decryption, key derivation, and convergent encryption
- `ed25519`: Ed25519; supports signing, signature verification, and key
  derivation
- `ecdsa-p256`: ECDSA using curve P-256; supports signing and signature
  verification
- `ecdsa-p384`: ECDSA using curve P-384; supports signing and signature
  verification
- `ecdsa-p521`: ECDSA using curve P-521; supports signing and signature
  verification
- `rsa-2048`: 2048-bit RSA key; supports encryption, decryption, signing, and
  signature verification
- `rsa-3072`: 3072-bit RSA key; supports encryption, decryption, signing, and
  signature verification
- `rsa-4096`: 4096-bit RSA key; supports encryption, decryption, signing, and
  signature verification

## Convergent Encryption

Convergent encryption is a mode where the same set of plaintext+context always
result in the same ciphertext. It does this by deriving a key using a key
derivation function but also by deterministically deriving a nonce. Because
these properties differ for any combination of plaintext and ciphertext over a
keyspace the size of 2^256, the risk of nonce reuse is near zero.

This has many practical uses. One common usage mode is to allow values to be stored
encrypted in a database, but with limited lookup/query support, so that rows
with the same value for a specific field can be returned from a query.

To accommodate for any needed upgrades to the algorithm, different versions of
convergent encryption have historically been supported:

- Version 1 required the client to provide their own nonce, which is highly
  flexible but if done incorrectly can be dangerous. This was only in Vault
  0.6.1, and keys using this version cannot be upgraded.
- Version 2 used an algorithmic approach to deriving the parameters. However,
  the algorithm used was susceptible to offline plaintext-confirmation attacks,
  which could allow attackers to brute force decryption if the plaintext size
  was small. Keys using version 2 can be upgraded by simply performing a rotate
  operation to a new key version; existing values can then be rewrapped against
  the new key version and will use the version 3 algorithm.
- Version 3 uses a different algorithm designed to be resistant to offline
  plaintext-confirmation attacks. It is similar to AES-SIV in that it uses a
  PRF to generate the nonce from the plaintext.

## Setup

Most secrets engines must be configured in advance before they can perform their
functions. These steps are usually completed by an operator or configuration
management tool.

1. Enable the Transit secrets engine:

   ```text
   $ vault secrets enable transit
   Success! Enabled the transit secrets engine at: transit/
   ```

   By default, the secrets engine will mount at the name of the engine. To
   enable the secrets engine at a different path, use the `-path` argument.

1. Create a named encryption key:

   ```text
   $ vault write -f transit/keys/my-key
   Success! Data written to: transit/keys/my-key
   ```

   Usually each application has its own encryption key.

## Usage

After the secrets engine is configured and a user/machine has a Vault token with
the proper permission, it can use this secrets engine.

1.  Encrypt some plaintext data using the `/encrypt` endpoint with a named key:

    **NOTE:** All plaintext data **must be base64-encoded**. The reason for this
    requirement is that Vault does not require that the plaintext is "text". It
    could be a binary file such as a PDF or image. The easiest safe transport
    mechanism for this data as part of a JSON payload is to base64-encode it.

    ```text
    $ vault write transit/encrypt/my-key plaintext=$(base64 <<< "my secret data")

    Key           Value
    ---           -----
    ciphertext    vault:v1:8SDd3WHDOjf7mq69CyCqYjBXAiQQAVZRkFM13ok481zoCmHnSeDX9vyf7w==
    ```

    The returned ciphertext starts with `vault:v1:`. The first prefix (`vault`)
    identifies that it has been wrapped by Vault. The `v1` indicates the key
    version 1 was used to encrypt the plaintext; therefore, when you rotate
    keys, Vault knows which version to use for decryption. The rest is a base64
    concatenation of the initialization vector (IV) and ciphertext.

    Note that Vault does not _store_ any of this data. The caller is responsible
    for storing the encrypted ciphertext. When the caller wants the plaintext,
    it must provide the ciphertext back to Vault to decrypt the value.

    !> Vault HTTP API imposes a maximum request size of 32MB to prevent a denial
    of service attack. This can be tuned per [`listener`
    block](/docs/configuration/listener/tcp) in the Vault server
    configuration.

1.  Decrypt a piece of data using the `/decrypt` endpoint with a named key:

    ```text
    $ vault write transit/decrypt/my-key ciphertext=vault:v1:8SDd3WHDOjf7mq69CyCqYjBXAiQQAVZRkFM13ok481zoCmHnSeDX9vyf7w==

    Key          Value
    ---          -----
    plaintext    bXkgc2VjcmV0IGRhdGEK
    ```

    The resulting data is base64-encoded (see the note above for details on
    why). Decode it to get the raw plaintext:

    ```text
    $ base64 --decode <<< "bXkgc2VjcmV0IGRhdGEK"
    my secret data
    ```

    It is also possible to script this decryption using some clever shell
    scripting in one command:

    ```text
    $ vault write -field=plaintext transit/decrypt/my-key ciphertext=... | base64 --decode
    my secret data
    ```

    Using ACLs, it is possible to restrict using the transit secrets engine such
    that trusted operators can manage the named keys, and applications can only
    encrypt or decrypt using the named keys they need access to.

1.  Rotate the underlying encryption key. This will generate a new encryption key
    and add it to the keyring for the named key:

    ```text
    $ vault write -f transit/keys/my-key/rotate
    Success! Data written to: transit/keys/my-key/rotate
    ```

    Future encryptions will use this new key. Old data can still be decrypted
    due to the use of a key ring.

1.  Upgrade already-encrypted data to a new key. Vault will decrypt the value
    using the appropriate key in the keyring and then encrypted the resulting
    plaintext with the newest key in the keyring.

    ```text
    $ vault write transit/rewrap/my-key ciphertext=vault:v1:8SDd3WHDOjf7mq69CyCqYjBXAiQQAVZRkFM13ok481zoCmHnSeDX9vyf7w==

    Key           Value
    ---           -----
    ciphertext    vault:v2:0VHTTBb2EyyNYHsa3XiXsvXOQSLKulH+NqS4eRZdtc2TwQCxqJ7PUipvqQ==
    ```

    This process **does not** reveal the plaintext data. As such, a Vault policy
    could grant almost an untrusted process the ability to "rewrap" encrypted
    data, since the process would not be able to get access to the plaintext
    data.

## Learn

Refer to the [Encryption as a Service: Transit Secrets
Engine](https://learn.hashicorp.com/vault/encryption-as-a-service/eaas-transit)
guide for a step-by-step tutorial.

## API

The Transit secrets engine has a full HTTP API. Please see the
[Transit secrets engine API](/api/secret/transit) for more
details.