Encrypting an image
If you deactivate the key used to encrypt a disk, image, or snapshot, access to the data will be suspended until you reactivate the key.
Alert
If you destroy the key or its version used to encrypt a disk, image, or snapshot, you will irrevocably lose access to the data. For details, see Destroying key versions.
-
Create a Yandex Key Management Service encryption key. For more information, see Encryption in Compute Cloud.
-
Create an encrypted disk from the image you want to encrypt:
-
In the management console
, select the folder containing the source image. -
Select Compute Cloud.
-
In the left-hand panel, select
Disks. -
Click Create disk.
-
Enter a name for the disk.
- It must be from 2 to 63 characters long.
- It can only contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
- It must start with a letter and cannot end with a hyphen.
-
Set the disk parameters, such as disk type, block size, and disk size.
-
In the Contents field, select
Image
and then select the image you need from the list below. Use the filter to find the image. -
Under Encryption, enable Encrypted disk and select the key you created earlier in the KMS key field.
-
Click Create disk.
Once created, the disk will get the
Creating
status. Wait until the disk status changes toReady
before using it. -
-
Create an image from the encrypted disk you created earlier.
-
Delete the encrypted disk.
-
Delete the source image.
If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI installed yet, install and initialize it.
By default, the CLI uses the folder specified when creating the profile. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID>
command. You can also set a different folder for any specific command using the --folder-name
or --folder-id
parameter.
-
Create a Yandex Key Management Service encryption key:
yc kms symmetric-key create \ --name <key_name> \ --default-algorithm aes-256 \ --rotation-period 24h \ --deletion-protection
Where
--name
is the name of the new Key Management Service key.Result:
id: abj73fd9mekk******** folder_id: b1geoelk7fld******** created_at: "2025-05-20T17:27:35Z" name: my-key1 status: ACTIVE primary_version: id: abjdno4pqi67******** key_id: abj73fd9mekk******** status: ACTIVE algorithm: AES_256 created_at: "2025-05-20T17:27:35Z" primary: true default_algorithm: AES_256 rotation_period: 86400s deletion_protection: true
-
Get a list of all images in the default folder:
yc compute image list
Result:
+----------------------+--------------------+------------------------+----------+ | ID | NAME | PRODUCT IDS | STATUS | +----------------------+--------------------+------------------------+----------+ | fd823vsvcmop******** | image-ubuntu-24-04 | igf2etq3erab3o******** | READY | | fd8p8l3asgud******** | image-debian-2025 | goa2etq3erab3o******** | READY | +----------------------+--------------------+------------------------+----------+
-
Create an encrypted disk from the image you want to encrypt:
yc compute disk create <encrypted_disk_name> \ --source-image-name <image_name> \ --kms-key-name <key_name>
Where:
--source-image-name
: Image name to create an encrypted disk.--kms-key-name
: Encryption key name.
Result:
done (53s) id: fhmihpagi991******** folder_id: b1geoelk7fld******** created_at: "2025-05-20T17:39:01Z" name: fromcliencrypted type_id: network-hdd zone_id: ru-central1-a size: "21474836480" block_size: "4096" status: READY source_image_id: sd1lb3jnrcs2******** disk_placement_policy: {} hardware_generation: legacy_features: pci_topology: PCI_TOPOLOGY_V1 kms_key: key_id: abj73fd9mekk******** version_id: abjdno4pqi67********
Once created, the disk will get the
Creating
status. Wait until the disk status changes toReady
before using it. -
Get a list of all disks in the default folder:
yc compute disk list
Result:
+----------------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+--------+----------------------+-------------------------+ | ID | NAME | SIZE | ZONE | STATUS | INSTANCE IDS | DESCRIPTION | +----------------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+--------+----------------------+-------------------------+ | a7lqgbt0bb9s******** | first-disk | 20401094656 | ru-central1-a | READY | a7lcvu28njbh******** | | | a7lv5j5hm1p1******** | second-disk | 21474836480 | ru-central1-a | READY | | | +----------------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+--------+----------------------+-------------------------+
-
Create an image from the encrypted disk you created earlier:
yc compute image create \ --name <name_of_new_image> \ --source-disk-name <encrypted_disk_name>
Result:
done (8s) id: fd87fubin9ql******** folder_id: b1geoelk7fld******** created_at: "2025-06-25T10:52:31Z" name: encrypted-image min_disk_size: "5368709120" status: READY os: type: LINUX hardware_generation: legacy_features: pci_topology: PCI_TOPOLOGY_V1 kms_key: key_id: abjgkrgibtmo******** version_id: abjvf41ltfi8********
-
Delete the encrypted disk:
yc compute disk delete <encrypted_disk_name>
Result:
done (4s)
-
Delete the source image:
yc compute image delete <unencrypted_image_name>
Result:
done (2s)
With Terraform
Terraform is distributed under the Business Source License
For more information about the provider resources, see the relevant documentation on the Terraform
If you do not have Terraform yet, install it and configure the Yandex Cloud provider.
To encrypt an image using Terraform:
-
In the Terraform configuration file, describe the resources you want to create:
# Creating a Yandex Key Management Service key resource "yandex_kms_symmetric_key" "my-key" { name = "encrypt-key" default_algorithm = "AES_256" rotation_period = "8760h" deletion_protection = true lifecycle { prevent_destroy = true } } # Creating an encrypted disk resource "yandex_compute_disk" "encrypted-disk" { name = "new-encrypted-disk" type = "network-hdd" zone = "ru-central1-a" size = 20 block_size = 4096 image_id = "<unencrypted_image_ID>" kms_key_id = yandex_kms_symmetric_key.my-key.id } # Creating an encrypted image resource "yandex_compute_image" "encrypted-image" { name = "<encrypted_image_name>" source_disk_id = yandex_compute_disk.encrypted-disk.id depends_on = [yandex_compute_disk.encrypted-disk] }
Where:
image_id
: Unencrypted image ID.name
: Name of the new encrypted image.
For more information about
yandex_compute_snapshot
properties, see the relevant provider documentation . -
Create the resources:
-
In the terminal, navigate to the directory where you edited the configuration file.
-
Make sure the configuration file is correct using this command:
terraform validate
If the configuration is correct, you will get this message:
Success! The configuration is valid.
-
Run this command:
terraform plan
You will see a detailed list of resources. No changes will be made at this step. If the configuration contains any errors, Terraform will show them.
-
Apply the changes:
terraform apply
-
Type
yes
and press Enter to confirm the changes.
Once created, the disk will get the
Creating
status. Wait until the disk status changes toReady
before using it. -
-
Delete the encrypted disk.
-
Delete the source image.
-
Create a Yandex Key Management Service encryption key using the create REST API method for the SymmetricKey resource or the SymmetricKeyService/Create gRPC API call.
-
Create an encrypted disk from an image using the create REST API method for the Disk resource or the DiskService/Create gRPC API call.
To request a list of available images, use the list REST API method or the ImageService/List gRPC API call.
Once created, the disk will get the
Creating
status. Wait until the disk status changes toReady
before using it. -
For the encrypted disk, create an image using the create REST API method for the Image resource or the ImageService/Create gRPC API call.
-
Delete the encrypted disk using the delete REST API method for the Disk resource or the DiskService/Delete gRPC API call.
-
Delete the source image using the delete REST API method for the Image resource or the ImageService/Delete gRPC API call.