# AES strength of vault encrypt?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/aes-strength-of-vault-encrypt/22738>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [October 7, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/aes-strength-of-vault-encrypt/22738 "2016-10-07T11:38:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jorg\_Kastning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@Jorg\_Kastning](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jorg_Kastning)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/aes-strength-of-vault-encrypt/22738/1 "2016-10-07T11:38:22Z")

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Hello,

in the documentation to [Vault](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_vault.html#creating-encrypted-files) is written that AES is used to encrypt the files. Do someone know the key strenght? Is it aes-128 bits, aes-256 bits or maybe aes-512 bits?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Regards,  
Joerg

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**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 12:19pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/aes-strength-of-vault-encrypt/22738/2 "2016-10-07T12:19:53Z")

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When creating a vault file with 2.1.0.0, the first line in the encrypted file is  
$ANSIBLE\_VAULT;1.1;AES256

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**Author:** ![Jorg\_Kastning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@Jorg\_Kastning](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jorg_Kastning)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 12:19pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/aes-strength-of-vault-encrypt/22738/3 "2016-10-07T12:19:57Z")

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Thanks for the quick reply.

Jörg