consul/website/source/docs/agent/encryption.html.markdown

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---
layout: "docs"
page_title: "Encryption"
sidebar_current: "docs-agent-encryption"
---
# Encryption
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The Consul agent supports encrypting all of its network traffic. The exact
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method of this encryption is described on the
[encryption internals page](/docs/internals/security.html).
## Enabling Encryption
Enabling encryption only requires that you set an encryption key when
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starting the Consul agent. The key can be set using the `-encrypt` flag
on `consul agent` or by setting the `encrypt_key` in a configuration file.
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It is advisable to put the key in a configuration file to avoid other users
from being able to discover it by inspecting running processes.
The key must be 16-bytes that are base64 encoded. The easiest method to
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obtain a cryptographically suitable key is by using `consul keygen`.
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```
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$ consul keygen
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cg8StVXbQJ0gPvMd9o7yrg==
```
With that key, you can enable encryption on the agent. You can verify
encryption is enabled because the output will include "Encrypted: true".
```
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$ consul agent -data=/tmp/consul -encrypt=cg8StVXbQJ0gPvMd9o7yrg==
==> Starting Consul agent...
==> Starting Consul agent RPC...
==> Consul agent running!
Node name: 'Armons-MacBook-Air.local'
Datacenter: 'dc1'
Advertise addr: '10.1.10.12'
RPC addr: '127.0.0.1:8400'
HTTP addr: '127.0.0.1:8500'
DNS addr: '127.0.0.1:8600'
Encrypted: true
Server: false (bootstrap: false)
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...
```
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All nodes within a Consul cluster must share the same encryption key in
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order to send and receive cluster information.