6.5.1

Table Of Contents
Use Encryption in Your vSphere
Environment 7
Using encryption in your vSphere environment requires some preparation. After your environment is set
up, you can create encrypted virtual machines and virtual disks and encrypt existing virtual machines and
disks.
You can perform additional tasks by using the API and by using the crypto-util CLI. See the vSphere
Web Services SDK Programming Guide for API documentation and the crypto-util command-line help
for details about that tool.
This section includes the following topics:
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Set up the Key Management Server Cluster
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Create an Encryption Storage Policy
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Enable Host Encryption Mode Explicitly
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Disable Host Encryption Mode
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Create an Encrypted Virtual Machine
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Clone an Encrypted Virtual Machine
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Encrypt an Existing Virtual Machine or Virtual Disk
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Decrypt an Encrypted Virtual Machine or Virtual Disk
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Change the Encryption Policy for Virtual Disks
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Resolve Missing Key Issues
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vSphere Virtual Machine Encryption and Core Dumps
Set up the Key Management Server Cluster
Before you can start with virtual machine encryption tasks, you must set up the key management server
(KMS) cluster. That task includes adding the KMS and establishing trust with the KMS. When you add a
cluster, you are prompted to make it the default. You can explicitly change the default cluster.
vCenter Server provisions keys from the default cluster.
The KMS must support the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) 1.1 standard. See the
vSphere Compatibility Matrixes for details.
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