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PKI 10.3 Exporting System Certificates

Endi S. Dewata edited this page Feb 2, 2022 · 1 revision

Overview

When installing a new PKI subsystem to join an existing security domain (e.g. installing KRA, cloning a CA), the new subsystem needs to authenticate against the security domain over SSL. The current mechanism has some issues:

  • To establish SSL connection, the new subsystem has to trust the SSL server certificate on the security domain without certificate chain.

  • For cloning, the current mechanism already requires exporting all certificates and keys from master, including certificate chain and third-party certificates. However, the current export mechanism will also include other certificates and keys not needed by the new subsystem. Also, currently the the third-party certificates (e.g. proxy certificate) do not get imported into the new subsystem, which may be needed to establish the SSL connection.

To address these issues PKI 10.3 will provide an alternative mechanism to export only the certificates and keys required by the new subsystem which include certificate chain and third-party certificates. The certificates and keys needs be transferred to the new subsystem, then the installer will import all certificates and keys such that it can make the proper SSL connection. This process will be implemented with the new PKI PKCS12 CLI.

For backward compatibility the existing mechanism will continue to work, but it may be deprecated in the future.

Installation Targets

The following table describes the Required Certificates/Keys for installing a Target. The required certificates/keys must be exported locally from the Source.

Target Source Required Certificates/Keys Property Example

Remote CA

Security domain

Certificate chain

ca.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Remote KRA

Security domain

Certificate chain

kra.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Remote OCSP

Security domain

Certificate chain

ocsp.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Remote TKS

Security domain

Certificate chain

tks.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Remote TPS

Security domain

Certificate chain

tps.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

CA clone

CA master

Certificate chain

ca.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Subsystem certificate and key

ca.subsystem.nickname

subsystemCert cert-pki-tomcat

CA signing certificate and key

ca.signing.nickname

caSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat CA

CA OCSP signing certificate and key

ca.ocsp_signing.nickname

ocspSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat CA

CA audit signing certificate and key

ca.audit_signing.nickname

auditSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat CA

KRA clone

KRA master

Certificate chain

kra.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Subsystem certificate and key

kra.subsystem.nickname

subsystemCert cert-pki-tomcat

KRA transport certificate and key

kra.transport.nickname

transportCert cert-pki-tomcat KRA

KRA storage certificate and key

kra.storage.nickname

storageCert cert-pki-tomcat KRA

KRA audit signing certificate and key

kra.audit_signing.nickname

auditSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat KRA

OCSP clone

OCSP master

Certificate chain

ocsp.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Subsystem certificate and key

ocsp.subsystem.nickname

subsystemCert cert-pki-tomcat

OCSP signing certificate and key

ocsp.signing.nickname

ocspSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat OCSP

OCSP audit signing certificate and key

ocsp.audit_signing.nickname

auditSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat OCSP

TKS clone

TKS master

Certificate chain

tks.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Subsystem certificate and key

tks.subsystem.nickname

subsystemCert cert-pki-tomcat

TKS audit signing certificate and key

tks.audit_signing.nickname

auditSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat TKS

TPS clone

TPS master

Certificate chain

tps.subsystem.nickname

Third party certificates

cs.thirdparty.cert

Subsystem certificate and key

tps.subsystem.nickname

subsystemCert cert-pki-tomcat

TPS audit signing certificate and key

tps.audit_signing.nickname

auditSigningCert cert-pki-tomcat TPS

The Certificate chain can be obtained by exporting the certificate whose nickname listed under Properties without the including the certificate itself, only the certificate chain.

The Third-party certificates (e.g. proxy certificate, external CA certificate) will be exported based on the following properties in CS.cfg:

cs.thirdparty.cert.0.nickname=<nickname>
cs.thirdparty.cert.1.nickname=<nickname>
...

The other certificates can be obtained by exporting the certificate whose nickname listed under Properties.

Exporting System Certificates

Remote Subsystem

To export the certificates/keys for a remote subsystem, execute the following command on the security domain:

$ pki-server ca-cert-chain-export \
    --pkcs12-file pki-server.p12 \
    --pkcs12-password-file password.txt

Transfer the file to the new subsystem.

Cloning

To export the certificates/keys for cloning, execute the following command on the master:

$ pki-server <subsystem>-clone-prepare
    --pkcs12-file pki-server.p12 \
    --pkcs12-password-file password.txt

Transfer the file to the new subsystem.

Advanced Procedure

Store the NSS database password in a file:

$ grep "internal=" /var/lib/pki/pki-tomcat/conf/password.conf | awk -F= '{print $2}' > internal.txt

Create an empty PKCS #12 file:

$ pki pkcs12-create --pkcs12 pki-server.p12 --pkcs12-password-file password.txt

Export certificate chain:

$ pki -d /var/lib/pki/pki-tomcat/alias -C internal.txt \
    pkcs12-cert-add "subsystemCert cert-pki-tomcat" \
    --pkcs12 pki-server.p12 \
    --pkcs12-password-file password.txt \
    --no-cert

Additional certificates can be added manually with the following command:

$ pki -d /var/lib/pki/pki-tomcat/alias -C internal.txt \
 pkcs12-cert-add <nickname> \
    --pkcs12 pki-server.p12 \
    --pkcs12-password-file password.txt

Verify the PKCS #12 file now contains the certificate chain only:

$ pki pkcs12-cert-find --pkcs12 pki-server.p12 --pkcs12-password-file password.txt
$ pki pkcs12-key-find --pkcs12 pki-server.p12 --pkcs12-password-file password.txt

Importing System Certificates

To import the certificates/keys file during PKI server deployment, specify the following deployment properties:

pki_server_pkcs12_path=pki-server.p12
pki_server_pkcs12_password=Secret.123

If the properties are specified, the pkispawn will import the PKCS #12 file with the following command:

$ pki-server pkcs12-import \
    --pkcs12-file pki-server.p12 \
    --pkcs12-password-file password.txt

If the pki_server_pkcs12 property is specified, the following code in SystemConfigService.configureClone() will not be executed:

ConfigurationUtils.importCertChain(host, port, "/ca/admin/ca/getCertChain", "securitydomain");
ConfigurationUtils.restoreCertsFromP12(p12File, p12Pass);

Backward Compatibility

If the pki_server_pkcs12 is not specified, the installer will work like before.

See Also

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