[role="xpack"] [[configuring-tls]] === Encrypting Communications in {es} {security} enables you to encrypt traffic to, from, and within your {es} cluster. Connections are secured using Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL). WARNING: Clusters that do not have encryption enabled send all data in plain text including passwords and will not be able to install a license that enables {security}. To enable encryption, you need to perform the following steps on each node in the cluster: . <<installing-xpack-es,Install {xpack} into {es}>>. . <<node-certificates, Generate a private key and X.509 certificate>>. . Configure each node to: .. Required: <<tls-transport,Enable TLS on the transport layer>>. .. Recommended: <<tls-http,Enable TLS on the HTTP layer>>. For more information about encrypting communications across the Elastic Stack, see {xpack-ref}/encrypting-communications.html[Encrypting Communications]. include::node-certificates.asciidoc[] include::tls-transport.asciidoc[] include::tls-http.asciidoc[]