[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>>.

. <<enable-ssl, Configure each node>> to:
.. Identify itself using its signed certificate.
.. Required: Enable SSL on the transport layer.
.. Recommended: Enable SSL on the HTTP layer.
. Restart {es}.

For more information about encrypting communications across the Elastic Stack,
see {xpack-ref}/encrypting-communications.html[Encrypting Communications].

include::node-certificates.asciidoc[]
include::node-config.asciidoc[]