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KMS Providers

On this page

  • Overview
  • Reasons to Use a Remote Key Management System
  • Key Management System Tasks
  • Create and Store your Customer Master Key
  • Create and Encrypt a Data Encryption Key
  • Supported Key Management Services
  • Amazon Web Services KMS
  • Azure Key Vault
  • Google Cloud Platform KMS
  • KMIP
  • Local Key Provider

Learn about the Key Management System (KMS) providers Queryable Encryption supports.

Using a remote Key Management System to manage your Customer Master Key has the following advantages over using your local filesystem to host it:

  • Secure storage of the key with access auditing

  • Reduced risk of access permission issues

  • Availability and distribution of the key to remote clients

  • Automated key backup and recovery

  • Centralized encryption key lifecycle management

Additionally, for the following KMS providers, your KMS remotely encrypts and decrypts your Data Encryption Key, ensuring your Customer Master Key is never exposed to your Queryable Encryption enabled application:

  • Amazon Web Services KMS

  • Azure Key Vault

  • Google Cloud KMS

In Queryable Encryption, your Key Management System:

  • Creates and encrypts the Customer Master Key

  • Encrypts the Data Encryption Keys created by your application

  • Decrypts Data Encryption Keys

To learn more about Customer Master Keys and Data Encryption Keys, see Keys and Key Vaults.

To create a Customer Master Key, configure your Key Management System to generate your Customer Master Key as follows:

Diagram

To view a tutorial that demonstrates how to create and store a CMK in your preferred KMS, see Tutorials.

To create a Data Encryption Key:

  • Instantiate a ClientEncryption instance in your Queryable Encryption enabled application:

    • Provide a kmsProviders object that specifies the credentials your Queryable Encryption enabled application uses to authenticate with your KMS provider.

  • Create a Data Encryption Key with the CreateDataKey method of the ClientEncryption object in your Queryable Encryption enabled application.

    • Provide a dataKeyOpts object that specifies with which key your KMS should encrypt your new Data Encryption Key.

To view a tutorial demonstrating how to create and encrypt a Data Encryption Key, see the following resources:

To view the structure of kmsProviders and dataKeyOpts objects for all supported KMS providers, see Supported Key Management Services.

The following sections of this page present the following information for all Key Management System providers:

  • Architecture of Queryable Encryption enabled client

  • Structure of kmsProviders objects

  • Structure of dataKeyOpts objects

Queryable Encryption supports the following Key Management System providers:

This section provides information related to using AWS Key Management Service in your Queryable Encryption enabled application.

To view a tutorial demonstrating how to use AWS KMS in your Queryable Encryption enabled application, see Use Automatic Queryable Encryption with AWS.

The following diagram describes the architecture of a Queryable Encryption enabled application using AWS KMS.

Diagram KMS

Note

Client Can't Access Customer Master Key

When using the preceding Key Management System, your Queryable Encryption enabled application does not have access to your Customer Master Key.

The following table presents the structure of a kmsProviders object for AWS KMS:

Field
Required for IAM User
Required for IAM Role
Description
Access Key ID
Yes
Yes
Identifies the account user.
Secret Access Key
Yes
Yes
Contains the authentication credentials of the account user.
Session Token
No
Yes
Contains a token obtained from AWS Security Token Service (STS).

The following table presents the structure of a dataKeyOpts object for AWS KMS:

Field
Required
Description
key
Yes
Amazon Resource Number (ARN) of the master key.
region
No
AWS region of your master key, e.g. "us-west-2"; required only if not specified in your ARN.
endpoint
No
Custom hostname for the AWS endpoint if configured for your account.

This section provides information related to using Azure Key Vault in your Queryable Encryption enabled application.

To view a tutorial demonstrating how to use Azure Key Vault in your Queryable Encryption enabled application, see Use Automatic Queryable Encryption with Azure.

The following diagram describes the architecture of a Queryable Encryption enabled application using Azure Key Vault.

Diagram KMS

Note

Client Can't Access Customer Master Key

When using the preceding Key Management System, your Queryable Encryption enabled application does not have access to your Customer Master Key.

The following table presents the structure of a kmsProviders object for Azure Key Vault:

Field
Required
Description
azure.tenantId
Yes
Identifies the organization of the account.
azure.clientId
Yes
Identifies the clientId to authenticate your registered application.
azure.clientSecret
Yes
Used to authenticate your registered application.
azure.identityPlatformEndpoint
No
Specifies a hostname and port number for the authentication server. Defaults to login.microsoftonline.com and is only needed for non-commercial Azure instances such as a government or China account.

The following table presents the structure of a dataKeyOpts object for Azure Key Vault:

Field
Required
Description
keyName
Yes
Name of the master key
keyVersion
No, but strongly recommended
Version of the master key
keyVaultEndpoint
Yes
URL of the key vault. E.g. myVaultName.vault.azure.net

Warning

If you do not include a keyVersion field, Azure Key Vault attempts to decrypt Data Encryption Keys using the latest Customer Master Key. If you rotate the CMK but do not rewrap the Data Encryption Keys with the new master key, attempting to decrypt an existing DEK fails, since the DEK is encrypted with the previous version of the CMK.

This section provides information related to using Google Cloud Key Management in your Queryable Encryption enabled application.

To view a tutorial demonstrating how to use GCP KMS in your Queryable Encryption enabled application, see Use Automatic Queryable Encryption with GCP.

The following diagram describes the architecture of a Queryable Encryption enabled application using GCP KMS.

Diagram KMS

Note

Client Can't Access Customer Master Key

When using the preceding Key Management System, your Queryable Encryption enabled application does not have access to your Customer Master Key.

The following table presents the structure of a kmsProviders object for GCP KMS:

Field
Required
Description
email
Yes
Identifies your service account email address.
privateKey
Yes
Identifies your service account private key in either base64 string or Binary subtype 0 format without the prefix and suffix markers.

Suppose your service account private key value is as follows:
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nyour-private-key\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n
The value you would specify for this field is:
your-private-key
If you have a user-key.json credential file, you can extract the string by executing the following command in a bash or similar shell. The following command requires that you install OpenSSL:
cat user-key.json | jq -r .private_key | openssl pkcs8 -topk8 -nocrypt -inform PEM -outform DER | base64 -w 0
endpoint
No
Specifies a hostname and port number for the authentication server. Defaults to oauth2.googleapis.com.

The following table presents the structure of a dataKeyOpts object for GCP KMS:

Field
Required
Description
projectId
Yes
Identifier for your project in which you created the key.
location
Yes
Region specified for your key.
keyRing
Yes
Identifier for the group of keys your key belongs to.
keyName
Yes
Identifier for the symmetric master key.
keyVersion
No
Specifies the version of the named key. If not specified, the default version of the key is used.
endpoint
No
Specifies the host and optional port of the Cloud KMS. The default is cloudkms.googleapis.com.

This section provides information related to using a KMIP compliant Key Management System in your Queryable Encryption enabled application.

The following diagram describes the architecture of a Queryable Encryption enabled application using a KMIP-compliant key provider.

Diagram

Important

Client Accesses Customer Master Key

When your Queryable Encryption enabled application uses a KMIP-compliant key provider, your application directly accesses your Customer Master Key.

The following table presents the structure of a kmsProviders object for a KMIP compliant Key Management System:

Note

Authenticate through TLS/SSL

Your Queryable Encryption enabled application authenticates through TLS/SSL when using KMIP.

Field
Required
Description
endpoint
Yes
Specifies a hostname and port number for the authentication server.

The following table presents the structure of a dataKeyOpts object for a KMIP compliant Key Management System:

Field
Required
Description
keyId
No

The keyId field of a 96 byte Secret Data managed object stored in your KMIP-compliant key provider.

If you do not specify the keyId field in the masterKey document you send to your KMIP-compliant key provider, the driver creates a new 96 Byte Secret Data managed object in your KMIP-compliant key provider to act as your master key.

endpoint
Yes
The URI of your KMIP-compliant key provider.

This section provides information related to using a Local Key Provider (your filesystem) in your Queryable Encryption enabled application.

Warning

Do Not Use a Local Key File in Production

A local key file in your filesystem is insecure and is not recommended for production. Instead, you should store your Customer Master Keys in a remote Key Management System (KMS).

To learn how to use a remote KMS in your Queryable Encryption implementation, see the Tutorials guide.

To view a tutorial demonstrating how to use a Local Key Provider for testing Queryable Encryption, see Quick Start.

When you use a Local Key Provider, your application retrieves your Customer Master Key from the filesystem of the computer it runs on. The following diagram describes the architecture of a Queryable Encryption-enabled application using a Local Key Provider.

Local Key Provider architecture diagram.

The following table presents the structure of a kmsProviders object for a Local Key Provider:

Field
Required
Description
key
Yes
The master key used to encrypt/decrypt data keys. The master key is passed as a base64 encoded string.

When you use a Local Key Provider, you specify your Customer Master Key through your kmsProviders object.

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