Symmetric key encryption

Recall that symmetric keys are used for encryption to protect some data—for example, using AES-256 in GCM mode to encrypt a block of plaintext.

Creating a symmetric key

To create a symmetric key, you will first need to create a key ring. The key ring determines the location of the key. Let us start with creating that.

Step 1: Creating a key ring

Here is a gcloud command to create a key ring:

gcloud kms keyrings create key-ring-name \

    --location location

Replace key-ring-name with a name for the key ring to hold the key. Replace location with the Cloud KMS location for the key ring and its keys.

Step 2: Creating a key

Use the following command to create a key in an existing key ring:

gcloud kms keys create key \

    --keyring key-ring-name \

    --location location \

    --purpose "encryption"

Replace key with the name...