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• Certificates for the specific use of code signing must be used.
• Users choose which approach they want to follow:
  • Creating self-signed Certificates.
  • Creating Private CA-signed Certificates.
  • Buy Public CA-signed Certificates

Rollout of certificates to Controllers and Agents depends on the following choice:

• Self-signed Certificates have to be deployed from individual certificate files made available to Controllers and Agents.
  • There is no security gap in use of self-signed Certificates. When users store certificate files to Controllers and Agents then this proves that they trust the certificates.
• Private CA-signed Certificates are not deployed to Controllers and Agents. Instead, the CA Certificate is deployed that was used to sign individual certificates.
  • The approach includes that any signing certificate signed by the CA will be accepted for deployment of scheduling objects.
  • For better control which certificates are made available for deplyoment, users might decide to use a specific Intermediate CA.
• Public CA-signed Certificates are not created by users but are purchased from a trusted CA and therefore are not considered by the article.

Self-signed Certificates and Private CA Certificates are deployed to the <data>/config/private/trusted-x509-keys directory of Controller and Agent instances.

The article suggests the following steps for creation of both Self-signed Certificates and Private CA-signed Certificates:

• Create Private Key
• Create Certificate Signing Request (CSR)
• Create and sign Certificate

The article explains how to create Signing Certificates for use with JS7. Users who operate their own Private Certificate Authority might find different approaches and different responsibilities for the indicated steps. There's more than one way how to do it.

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The steps to create a Private Key and Certificate Signing Request are the same for use of self-signed Certificates and Private CA-signed Certificates. Users have the option to use ECDSA or RSA for the encryption type applied to the Private Key.

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• Private Key
  • Choice of algorithm such as secp256k1, secp384r1 depends on support by the Java version used with JS7.
• Certificare Signing Request
  • The hash algorithm such as -sha256, -sha512 can be freely chosen.
  • The -subj option specifies the Distinguished Name used for the subject of the CSR and resulting Certificate.
    • The Distinguished Name is a unique identifier frequently using the hierarchy of Country C, State ST, Location L, Organization O, Organizational Unit OU and Common Name CN.
    • For self-signed Certificates the subject and issuer properties of the CSR/Certificate are the same. The minimum requirement is to specify the Common Name CN=<name> where <name> can freely be chosen.
    • For Private CA-signed Certificates the subject property holds the Certificate's Distinguished Name and the issuer property holds the Private CA Certificate's Distinguished Name . Both Distinguished Names should match except for the Common Name CNusing different values.
• The following files will be created with this step:
  • The <key_name>.key file will hold the Private Key.
  • The <key_name>.csr file will hold the Certificate Signing Request.

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Users have the option to create self-signed Certificates or Private CA-signed Certificates.

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creating_self_signed_certificates creating_self_signed_certificates

Creating self-signed Certificates

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Self-signed Certificates must be copied to the <data>/config/private/trusted-x509-keys directory of Controller and Agent instances.

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ca_signed_certificates ca_signed_certificates

Creating Private CA-signed Certificates

For Private CA-signed Certificates a Certificate Authority (CA) is required owning a CA Private Key and CA Certificate. The CA Private Key and CA Certificate will be used to sign Certificates certificates on behalf of users.

• Setup of the Certificate Authority is performed once.
• Signing is performed for each Certificate certificate on behalf of users.

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creating_ca creating_ca

Creating the Private Certificate Authority (CA)

The steps to create the CA Private Key and CA Certificate are similar to Creating the Private Key and Certificate Signing Request for self-signed Certificates.

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Steps include to create the signing-ca.crt Private CA-signed Certificate file in PEM format.

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Steps include to create the signing.crt Private CA-signed Certificate file in PEM format.

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