Find the AWS CloudHSM key for a KMS key - AWS Key Management Service

Find the AWS CloudHSM key for a KMS key

You can use the KMS key ID of a KMS key in an AWS CloudHSM key store to identify the key in your AWS CloudHSM cluster that serves as its key material.

When AWS KMS creates the key material for a KMS key in your AWS CloudHSM cluster, it writes the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the KMS key in the key label. Unless you have changed the label value, you can use the key list command in CloudHSM CLI to find the key-resource and id of the key material for the KMS key.

All CloudTrail log entries for cryptographic operation with a KMS key in an AWS CloudHSM key store include an additionalEventData field with the customKeyStoreId and backingKeyId. The value returned in the backingKeyId field is the id AWS CloudHSM key attribute. You can filter the key list AWS CloudHSM CLI operation by KMS key ARN to identify the CloudHSM key id attribute associated with a specific KMS key.

To run this procedure, you need to disconnect the AWS CloudHSM key store temporarily so you can log in as the kmsuser CU.

Notes

The following procedures use the AWS CloudHSM Client SDK 5 command line tool, CloudHSM CLI. The CloudHSM CLI replaces key-handle with key-reference.

On January 1, 2025, AWS CloudHSM will end support for the Client SDK 3 command line tools, the CloudHSM Management Utility (CMU) and the Key Management Utility (KMU). For more information on the differences between the Client SDK 3 command line tools and the Client SDK 5 command line tool, see Migrate from Client SDK 3 CMU and KMU to Client SDK 5 CloudHSM CLI in the AWS CloudHSM User Guide.

  1. Disconnect the AWS CloudHSM key store, if it is not already disconnected, then log in as kmsuser, as explained in How to disconnect and log in.

    Note

    While a custom key store is disconnected, all attempts to create KMS keys in the custom key store or to use existing KMS keys in cryptographic operations will fail. This action can prevent users from storing and accessing sensitive data.

  2. Use the key list command in CloudHSM CLI and filter by label to find the KMS key for a particular key in your AWS CloudHSM cluster. Specify the verbose argument to include all attributes and key information for the matched key. If you don't specify the verbose argument, the key list operation only returns the matched key's key-reference and label attributes.

    The following example demonstrates how to filter by the label attribute that stores the KMS key ARN. Before running this command, replace the example KMS key ARN with a valid one from your account.

    aws-cloudhsm > key list --filter attr.label="arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:111122223333:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab" --verbose
{
  "error_code": 0,
  "data": {
    "matched_keys": [
      {
        "key-reference": "0x0000000000120034",
        "key-info": {
          "key-owners": [
            {
              "username": "kmsuser",
              "key-coverage": "full"
            }
          ],
          "shared-users": [],
          "cluster-coverage": "full"
        },
        "attributes": {
          "key-type": "aes",
          "label": "arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:111122223333:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-1234567890ab",
          "id": "0xbacking-key-id",
          "check-value": "0x29bbd1",
          "class": "my_test_key",
          "encrypt": true,
          "decrypt": true,
          "token": true,
          "always-sensitive": true,
          "derive": false,
          "destroyable": true,
          "extractable": false,
          "local": true,
          "modifiable": true,
          "never-extractable": false,
          "private": true,
          "sensitive": true,
          "sign": false,
          "trusted": false,
          "unwrap": true,
          "verify": false,
          "wrap": true,
          "wrap-with-trusted": false,
          "key-length-bytes": 32
        }
      }
    ],
    "total_key_count": 1,
    "returned_key_count": 1
  }
}

  3. Log out and reconnect the AWS CloudHSM key store as described in How to log out and reconnect.