title | excerpt | updated |
---|---|---|
Using OVHcloud Key Management Service (KMS) |
Encrypt or sign your data with the OVHcloud Key Management Service (KMS) |
2024-11-25 |
The purpose of this guide is to show you the steps to interact with the OVHcloud KMS to encrypt or sign your data.
Communication with the KMS for encryption and signature actions is available via APIs.
Since the KMS is regionalized, you can access the API directly in its region: https://my-region.ovh.com.net
.
For example, for a KMS created in the eu-west-rbx region: https://eu-west-rbx.okms.ovh.net.
It's possible to communicate with the KMS using:
- The Swagger UI
- The OMKS CLI: https://github.com/ovh/okms-cli
- The Golang SDK: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/ovh/okms-sdk-go
You can access the KMS Swagger UI by clicking on the link in the OVHcloud Control Panel, in your KMS dashboard.
You will land on the non-authenticated version of the Swagger UI, that is meant for API documentation purposes. If you want to use the Swagger UI to make requests on your own KMS, you will need to switch to the authenticated version, whose link is in the description section:
The next steps will guide you on how to authenticate.
To access the authenticated Swagger UI, you need to load your KMS access certificate into the browser Certificate Manager.
For that, it is required to convert it to PKCS#12 format. PKCS#12 is a binary format for storing a certificate chain and private key in a single, encrypted file. It is commonly used for importing and exporting certificates and private keys, especially in environments that require secure transport of these items, such as web servers and client applications.
To convert your KMS credentials (assuming you saved them into files named ID_certificate.pem
and ID_privatekey.pem
) to PKCS#12 with the openssl Command Line Interface, use the following command:
openssl pkcs12 -export -in ID_certificate.pem -inkey ID_privatekey.pem -out client.p12
You will be prompted to enter a password that will be used for the symmetrical encryption of the file content. Then, you need to import it into your web browser.
- Type
about:preferences#privacy
into the address bar. - Scroll down until reaching a section named
Certificates
{.action}.
- Click
View Certificates...
{.action} to open the Certificate Manager. - Go to the tab named
My Certificates
{.action}, thenImport...
{.action} and select the location of yourclient.p12
file. - You will be prompted to enter the password you used during the PKCS#12 file creation.
- After entering the password, your certificate will be imported and ready for use.
- Type
chrome://settings/certificates
into the address bar. - Go to the
Your certificates
{.action} tab. ClickImport
{.action} and select yourclient.p12
file. - You will be prompted to enter the password you used during the PKCS#12 file creation.
- After entering the password, your certificate will be imported and ready for use.
Once your certificate is loaded into your browser, you can go to the authenticated Swagger UI.
You will be prompted to identify yourself with a certificate. Select the previously imported PKCS#12 certificate in the drop-down list.
You can now use the Swagger UI interactively.
Key creation can be performed either through the OVHcloud API or on the specific OVHcloud KMS API. There is no difference on the result from the creation method.
In the case of the specific OVHcloud KMS API, you can create a key using the following API:
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
POST | /v1/servicekey | Create or import a CMK |
The API expects the following values:
Field | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
name | string | Key name |
context | string | Additional credential to verify key authenticity |
type | oct, RSA, EC | Key type: Byte sequence (oct) for symmetric keys, RSA (RSA), Elliptic Curve (EC) |
size | Integer | Key size - see lookup below |
operations | Array | Key Usage - see lookup below |
curve | P-256, P-384, P-521 | (optional) Cryptographic curve for EC type keys |
Example of symmetric key creation:
{
"name": "My first AES key",
"context": "project A",
"type": "oct",
"size": 256,
"operations": [
"encrypt",
"decrypt"
]
}
Example of asymmetric key creation:
{
"name": "My first RSA key",
"context": "project A",
"type": "RSA",
"size": 4096,
"operations": [
"sign",
"verify"
]
}
Example of EC key creation:
{
"name": "My first EC key",
"context": "project A",
"type": "EC",
"operations": [
"sign",
"verify"
],
"curve": "P-256"
}
Depending on the key type, the possible sizes and operations are:
- Oct:
- size: 128, 192, 256
- operations:
- encrypt, decrypt
- wrapKey, unwrapKey
- RSA:
- size: 2048, 3072, 4096
- operations: sign, verify
- EC:
- size: do not specify
- curve: P-256, P-384, P-521
- operations: sign, verify
When you create a key, you can import an existing key.
To do this, you can add an additional keys field in the body of the request:
{
"name": "My imported key",
"keys": [
{
"kid": "string",
"use": "string",
"key_ops": [
"string"
],
"alg": "string",
"kty": "oct",
"n": "string",
"e": "string",
"k": "string",
"crv": "string",
"x": "string",
"y": "string",
"d": "string",
"dp": "string",
"dq": "string",
"p": "string",
"q": "string",
"qi": "string"
}
]
}
The key must be in JSON Web Key (JWK) format. The values of the fields contained in the table follow the documentation in RFC 7518.
In order to manage encryption keys, several APIs are available:
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
GET | /v1/servicekey | Lists the available encryption keys |
DELETE | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/delete | Deletes an encryption key |
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/activate | Activates an encryption key |
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/deactivate | Deactivates an encryption key |
Disabling an encryption key means that it will no longer be usable, even though the key remains in the KMS.
Deleting an encryption key is only possible on a key that has been previously disabled.
Warning
Deleting an encryption key is permanent. All data encrypted using it will be permanently inaccessible.
The OVHcloud KMS has a dedicated encryption API for encrypting small volumes of data (less than 4 kB).
This is the easiest method, but it does not have the best performance.
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/encrypt | Data encryption with a CMK |
The API expects the following values:
Field | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
plaintext | string | Data to encrypt |
context | string | Additional identification data to verify data authenticity |
Encryption example
{
"plaintext": "My secret data",
"context": "Project A"
}
The API then returns the encrypted data in a ciphertext field:
{
"ciphertext": "Encrypted data",
}
The decryption of the data is done in reverse via the API:
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/decrypt | Decrypting data with a CMK |
The API expects the following values:
Field | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
ciphertext | string | Data to decrypt |
context | string | Additional identification data to verify data authenticity |
The context field must have the same value as the one given during encryption.
For better performance, you can generate a Data Key (DK) from a Symmetric Key (AES) to use from your application. The AES key used must have been generated with the "wrapKey, unwrapKey" operations.
You can generate a DK using the following API:
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/datakey | Generates a DK derived from a CMK |
The API expects the following values:
Field | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
name | string | Key name |
size | Integer | Key Size (64-4096) |
Data Key generation example:
{
"name": "My Data Key",
"size": 4096
}
The API will then return the Data Key:
{
"key": "string",
"plaintext": "string"
}
- key : encrypted key encoded in base64. This information must be stored with the encrypted data and will be used for decryption by the KMS.
- plaintext: plain key encoded in base64. This information must be deleted once the encryption is complete and must not be backed up.
The use of the Data Key is then done through encryption algorithms like AES-GCM. This is not covered by this documentation.
Conversely, you can retrieve the decrypted version of a Data Key via the following API:
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/datakey/decrypt | Decrypting a DK |
The API expects the following values:
Field | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
key | string | Encrypted Data Key |
And it returns the decrypted Data Key in a plaintext field.
File signing is done using the private key of an asymmetric key pair.
The OVHcloud KMS supports the following list of signing algorithms:
- RSASSA-PKCS1 v1.5
Name | Digital Signature Algorithm |
---|---|
RS256 | RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-256 |
RS384 | RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-384 |
RS512 | RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 using SHA-512 |
Following the documentation in RFC 7518.
- ECDSA
Name | Digital Signature Algorithm |
---|---|
ES256 | ECDSA using P-256 and SHA-256 |
ES384 | ECDSA using P-384 and SHA-384 |
ES512 | ECDSA using P-521 and SHA-512 |
Following the documentation in RFC 7518.
- RSASSA-PSS
Name | Digital Signature Algorithm |
---|---|
PS256 | RSASSA-PSS using SHA-256 and MGF1 with SHA-256 |
PS384 | RSASSA-PSS using SHA-384 and MGF1 with SHA-384 |
PS512 | RSASSA-PSS using SHA-512 and MGF1 with SHA-512 |
Following the documentation in RFC 7518.
Since the private key cannot be extracted from the KMS, the signature can only be done directly with the KMS.
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/sign | File signature |
The API expects the following values:
Field | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
message | string | Message to sign in base64 format |
alg | string | Signature algorithm |
isdigest | boolean | Whether the message is already hashed |
Signature example:
{
"message": "SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ=",
"alg": "RS256",
"isdigest": false
}
The API will then return the file signature:
{
"signature": "EmUGXC6rsFTWtmFn77y6NS/U6IuhThApVKWTZdXjE7rDMonRPPxbjTo01HQN62J3Dxqyw=="
}
You can check a file either directly with the KMS, or by using the public key.
With the KMS, you can use the following API:
Method | Path | Description |
---|---|---|
POST | /v1/servicekey/{keyId}/verify | Verifying a signature |
The API expects the following values:
Field | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
message | string | Message to sign |
signature | string | Signature associated with the message |
alg | string | Signature algorithm |
isdigest | boolean | Whether the message is already hashed |
Verification example
{
"message": "SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ=",
"signature": "EmUGXC6rsFTWtmFn77y6NS/U6IuhThApVKWTZdXjE7rDMonRPPxbjTo01HQN62J3Dxqyw==",
"alg": "RS256",
"isdigest": false
}
The API will then return the result of the verification:
{
"result": true
}
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