| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="vmencryption-limitations">
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| 4 | <title>Limitations of VM Encryption</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | There are some limitations the user needs to be aware of when
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| 9 | using this feature:
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| 10 | </p>
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| 11 | <ul>
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| 12 | <li>
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| 13 | <p>
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| 14 | Exporting appliances containing an encrypted VM is not
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| 15 | possible, because the OVF specification does not support
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| 16 | this. The VM is therefore decrypted during export.
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| 17 | </p>
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| 18 | </li>
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| 19 | <li>
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| 20 | <p>
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| 21 | The DEK is kept in memory while the VM is running to be able
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| 22 | to encrypt and decrypt VM data. While this should be obvious
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| 23 | the user needs to be aware of this because an attacker might
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| 24 | be able to extract the key on a compromised host and decrypt
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| 25 | the data.
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| 26 | </p>
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| 27 | </li>
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| 28 | <li>
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| 29 | <p>
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| 30 | When encrypting or decrypting the VM, the password is passed
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| 31 | in clear text using the Oracle VM VirtualBox API. This needs to be
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| 32 | kept in mind, especially when using third party API clients
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| 33 | which make use of the web service where the password might
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| 34 | be transmitted over the network. The use of HTTPS is
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| 35 | mandatory in such a case.
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| 36 | </p>
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| 37 | </li>
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| 38 | </ul>
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| 39 | </body>
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| 40 |
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| 41 | </topic>
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