Loading

×Sorry to interrupt
This page has an error. You might just need to refresh it.
[NoErrorObjectAvailable] Uncaught ReferenceError: addCTracking is not defined
Failing descriptor: {markup://c:KM_ArticleThemeLayout}

Refresh

Cookie Preference Center

General Information on cookies

When you visit our website, we use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience. This information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies by clicking on the different category headings to find out more and change your settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on the site and the services we are able to offer. Further information can be found in our

Cookie Policy.

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary

Always Active

Strictly Necessary

Strictly necessary cookies are always enabled since they are essential for our website to function. They enable core functionality such as security, network management, and website accessibility. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but this may affect how the website functions. For more information please visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

Cookie Details‎

Performance

Performance

Performance

Performance cookies are used to analyze the user experience to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. They allow us to know which pages are the most and least popular, see how visitors move around the site, optimize our website and make it easier to navigate.

Cookie Details‎

Please confirm your settings by refreshing the page.

Functional

Functional

Functional

Functional cookies help us keep track of your past browsing choices so we can improve usability and customize your experience. These cookies enable the website to remember your preferred settings, language preferences, location and other customizable elements such as font or text size. If you do not allow these cookies, then some or all of these services may not function properly.

Cookie Details‎

Advertising

Advertising

Advertising

Advertising cookies are used to send you relevant advertising and promotional information. They may be set through our site by third parties to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant advertisements on other sites. These cookies do not directly store personal information, but their function is based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device.

Cookie Details‎

Advertising Cookies

Consent Leg.Interest

Select All Vendors

Select All Vendors

Select All Hosts

Select All

Clear Filters

Information storage and access

Apply

Confirm My Choices Reject All Allow All

My Subscriptions

Loading

Knowledge Base

Disabling static ciphers for TLS in ESXi (79476)

Last Updated: 10/31/2022Categories: TroubleshootingTotal Views: 34669Language:
English

14 like this article

Subscribe to get an email
newsletter with new updates

14 people found this helpful Please provide article feedback:

Symptoms

A security scan reports "static TLS ciphers" or "non-ephemeral TLS ciphers" as an area of concern.

This includes ciphers such as TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA or TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256.

Cause

This issue occurs as the TLS protocol uses an RSA key within the TLS handshake to affirm identity, and with a "static TLS cipher" the same RSA key is used to encrypt a premaster secret used for further encrypted communication. If the RSA private key were compromised, all previous communication could be decrypted. Newer TLS ciphers use Diffie-Hellman with ephemeral keys (DHE, ECDHE) to negotiate a one-time key so that previous communication cannot be decrypted in the event of key compromise. vSphere products have supported ephemeral key exchange since at least version 6.0.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, disable weak cipher algorithms.

Note: VMware presently does not consider static TLS ciphers as insecure, in alignment with current industry standards. Additionally, many older (legacy) software products in the enterprise Datacenter (For example, Java7) lack support for ephemeral key exchange and interoperability with such products would break if static TLS ciphers were to be disabled. As such, VMware does not recommend disabling static TLS ciphers.

However, VMware will support users who wish to configure a different set of TLS ciphers to comply with their own security policies.

For port 443 (HTTPS) on ESXi

Connect to the ESXi host through SSH.

Take a backup of /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/config.xml file.

Open the /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/config.xml file in a text editor.

Find a line containing <cipherList>. If it doesn't exit, the user can create it within the XML structure:

<config>
<vmacore>
<ssl>
<cipherList>...</cipherList>
</ssl>
</vmacore>
</config>

Replace with this line:

<cipherList>!aNULL:ECDHE+AESGCM:ECDHE+AES</cipherList>

For changes to take effect, restart the rhttpproxy service using this command:

/etc/init.d/rhttpproxy restart

For port 5989 (CIM) on ESXi

Connect to the ESXi host through SSH.

Navigate to /etc/sfcb folder.

Take a backup of the sfcb.cfg file.

Open the sfcb.cfg file in a text editor.

Add the below line:

sslCipherList: ECDHE+AESGCM:ECDHE+AES

Restart the CIM service by running this command:

/etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog restart

Note: for 7.0U2 and later it is not possible to manually edit the /etc/sfcb.cfg as outlined in vSphere ESXi 7.0 U2 and later versions configuration files for sfcb "wbem" and snmp can no longer be edited
This can now be modified by running the following command and specifying the required cipher strings to be used E.g:

esxcli system wbem set --ssl-cipher-list=!aNULL:kECDH+AESGCM:ECDH+AESGCM:RSA+AESGCM:kECDH+AES:ECDH+AES:RSA+AES:ECDHE+AESGCM:ECDHE+AES

For port 8182 (FDM) on ESXi

Connect to the ESXi host using SSH (Putty).

Take a backup of /etc/opt/vmware/fdm/fdm.cfg file.

Open the /etc/opt/vmware/fdm/fdm.cfg file in a text editor.

Find a line containing <ssl>

Add the following line between the <ssl> and </ssl> tags:

<cipherList>!aNULL:ECDHE+AESGCM:ECDHE+AES</cipherList>

For changes to take effect, restart the vmware-fdm service using this command:

/etc/init.d/vmware-fdm restart

For port 9080 (iofilterVP) on ESXi

Connect to ESXi with SSH.

Stop iofiltervpd with this command:

/etc/init.d/iofiltervpd stop

Modify advanced option /UserVars/ESXiVPsAllowedCiphers with this command:

esxcli system settings advanced set -o /UserVars/ESXiVPsAllowedCiphers -s !aNULL:ECDHE+AESGCM:ECDHE+AES

Start iofiltervpd with command:

/etc/init.d/iofiltervpd start

Once this is completed, you may need to go to the vSphere Client under Storage Providers, and perform a re-registration of the IOFilterVP.

Notes: If you want to also disable CBC ciphers and only use GCM ciphers, instead of !aNULL:ECDHE+AESGCM:ECDHE+AES, use !aNULL:ECDHE+AESGCM. VMware has not tested this specific configuration, and it is recommended to have a backup/restore option available.

Detectable by VMware SkylineTM

Actions

Copy

link to clipboard
copied!

Print

Language:
English

Attachments

Additional Resources

KB
•
支持 Intel® Optane™ DC 永久内存模块的 Intel® Server System BP 系列 (76744)

KB
•
End Of General Availability of the Free vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi 7.x and 8.x) (2107518)

Results 1-2 of 2

Ask The Community

Get answers quickly from VMware experts in the community

Post Subject

CONTINUE IN COMMUNITIES

Related Products:

VMware vSphere ESXi

Related Versions:

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.0

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

Take Our Survey

Support Assistant