---
layout: docs
page_title: Use 3rd party key management
description: >-
  Configure Vault to defer private key operations to a third party system.
---

# Use 3rd party key management for private keys

@include 'alerts/enterprise-and-hcp.mdx'

Within certain environments, customers want to leverage key management systems
external to Vault, when handling, storing, and interacting with
private key material, or are required to do so by standards requirements.

To satisfy these requirements, Vault has a centralized abstraction called
*Managed Keys* that different secrets engines can plug into, allowing them to
delegate these operations to a trusted external KMS.

Minimally, a managed key consists of a named managed key entry managed by the
[`sys/managed-key`](/vault/api-docs/system/managed-keys) API.  Besides a name,
there are backend specific configurations to access the key in question.

For PKCS#11 (HSM) backed managed keys, the managed key configuration must
reference a [kms library stanza](/vault/docs/configuration/kms-library) which points
to a PKCS#11 access library on the host machine.

Note that a configured, named managed key corresponds to a single key within
a backend.  More than one managed key can be configured targeting a single
backend by creating multiple managed keys with the API.

## Namespace support

Every configured Managed Key is bound to a given namespace, defaulting to the
root namespace. Any secrets engine's mount path must exist within the same namespace
as the Managed Key for which it intends to use.

## Backend support

Managed Keys were developed to support different types of external backends. At
this time supported backends are PKCS#11, AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, and Google
Cloud KMS. Support for additional integrations may be added in the future.

## Secret and auth engine support

The [PKI Secrets Engine](/vault/api-docs/secret/pki#managed-keys) has been integrated
with Managed Keys to offer certificate generation, both root and intermediary
PKI paths, leveraging private keys from an external trusted KMS.

The [Transit Secrets Engine](/vault/api-docs/secret/transit#managed-keys) allows users
to generate and verify cryptographic signatures with Managed Keys, and in some cases encrypt
and decrypt data, or generate MACs and HMACs. These operations are performed on the KMS or HSM
that hosts the Managed Key material.

More engines may leverage managed keys in the future.

## API

Managed Keys can be managed over the HTTP API. Please see
[Managed Keys API](/vault/api-docs/system/managed-keys) for more details.

To configure PKI secrets engine with Managed Keys please see
[PKI Secret API](/vault/api-docs/secret/pki#managed-keys)
