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Client-Side Field Level Encryption

KeyVault.createKey()

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  • Compatibility
  • Syntax
  • Behavior
  • Example
KeyVault.createKey(keyManagementService, customerMasterKey, ["keyAltName"])

Adds a data encryption key to the key vault associated to the database connection. Client-side field level encryption uses data encryption keys for supporting encryption and decryption of field values.

Returns:The UUID unique identifier of the created data encryption key.

Compatibility

This command is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:

  • MongoDB Atlas: The fully managed service for MongoDB deployments in the cloud

Syntax

createKey() has the following syntax:

keyVault = db.getMongo().getKeyVault()
keyVault.createKey(
  keyManagementService,
  customerMasterKey,
  [ "keyAltName" ]
)
Parameter
Type
Description

keyManagementService

string

Required

The Key Management Service (KMS) to use for retrieving the Customer Master Key (CMK). Accepts the following parameters:

If the database connection was not configured with the specified KMS, data encryption key creation fails.

customerMasterKey

string or document

The Customer Master Key (CMK) to use for encrypting the data encryption key. Required if keyManagementService is aws, azure, or gcp.

Provide the CMK as follows depending on your KMS provider:

This parameter has no effect if keyManagementService is local and can be safely omitted.

keyAltName

array of strings

Optional

The alternative name for the data encryption key. Use keyAltName to improve findability of a specific data encryption key, or as an analog to a comment.

The getKeyVault() method automatically creates a unique index on the keyAltNames field with a partial index filter for only documents where keyAltNames exists.

Behavior

Requires Configuring Client-Side Field Level Encryption on Database Connection

The mongo client-side field level encryption methods require a database connection with client-side field level encryption enabled. If the current database connection was not initiated with client-side field level encryption enabled, either:

Example

The following example is intended for rapid evaluation of client-side field level encryption. For specific examples of using KeyVault.createKey() with each supported KMS provider, see Create a Data Encryption Key.

Configuring client-side field level encryption for a locally managed key requires specifying a base64-encoded 96-byte string with no line breaks. The following operation generates a key that meets the stated requirements and loads it into the mongo shell:

TEST_LOCAL_KEY=$(echo "$(head -c 96 /dev/urandom | base64 | tr -d '\n')")
mongosh --nodb --shell --eval "var TEST_LOCAL_KEY='$TEST_LOCAL_KEY'"

Create the client-side field level encryption object using the generated local key string:

var ClientSideFieldLevelEncryptionOptions = {
  "keyVaultNamespace" : "encryption.__dataKeys",
  "kmsProviders" : {
    "local" : {
      "key" : BinData(0, TEST_LOCAL_KEY)
    }
  }
}

Use the Mongo() constructor to create a database connection with the client-side field level encryption options. Replace the mongodb://myMongo.example.net URI with the connection string URI of the target cluster.

encryptedClient = Mongo(
  "mongodb://myMongo.example.net:27017/?replSetName=myMongo",
  ClientSideFieldLevelEncryptionOptions
)

Retrieve the keyVault object and use the KeyVault.createKey() method to create a new data encryption key using the locally managed key:

keyVault = encryptedClient.getKeyVault()
keyVault.createKey("local", ["data-encryption-key"])

If successful, createKey() returns the UUID of the new data encryption key. To retrieve the new data encryption key document from the key vault, either:

Back

KeyVault.addKeyAlternateName

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KeyVault.deleteKey