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<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="vmencryption-encryption">
  <title>Encrypting a VM</title>
  
  <body>
    <p>To encrypt an unencrypted VM with <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput>, use: </p>
    <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage encryptvm <varname>uuid</varname>|<varname>vmname</varname> setencryption --new-password <varname>filename</varname>|- \
--cipher <varname>cipher-ID</varname> --new-password-id <varname>ID</varname>
                  </pre>
    <p>To supply the encryption password, point <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> to the file where the password is
      stored or specify <codeph>-</codeph> to let <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> prompt for the password on the
      command line. </p>
    <p>The cipher parameter specifies the cipher to use for encryption and can be either <codeph>AES-128</codeph> or
        <codeph>AES-256</codeph>. The appropriate mode of operation, such as GCM, CTR, or XTS will be selected by the VM
      depending on the encrypting component. The specified password identifier can be freely chosen by the user and is
      used for correct identification when supplying multiple passwords for the VM. </p>
  </body>
  
</topic>
