k8wiz
Cilium
Hard
Security

How are encryption keys distributed when Cilium's transparent encryption uses WireGuard, compared with IPsec?

Select your answer:

Show answer and explanation

Answer: WireGuard: per-node keys shared via CiliumNode. IPsec: a key in a Secret

Explanation

For WireGuard, each node creates a key pair and announces its public key in the network.cilium.io/wg-pub-key annotation on its CiliumNode resource. Peers read it from there, so there's no shared secret to manage. IPsec mode reads its keys from a Secret, usually cilium-ipsec-keys, which you create and rotate yourself.