Managing TLS cipher suites

A cipher suite is a specific set of methods or algorithms that provide functions, including key exchange, bulk encryption, hashing, and creating message digests. Numerous Windows services, such as TLS, SSH, and IPSEC, make use of cipher suites when communicating with other hosts. With TLS, you can use the TLS cipher suite cmdlets to manage the cipher suites that your IIS web server is going to negotiate (or not).

Once the browser connects to the web server, the web server and the browser negotiate and choose the best cipher suite that both sides can support. If the browser only asks for cipher suites that the web server does not support, then the server terminates the communication.

By default, Windows Server 2019 supports 31 cipher suites, providing different algorithms and key lengths. In this recipe, you retrieve the cipher suites on Windows Server 2019, and both enable and disable a specific cipher suite.

Getting ready

This recipe makes use of SRV1, after you have...