Introduction
Create Root CA Certificate
...
SSL/TLS Certificates are used to secure HTTP connections between JOC Cockpit, Controller and Agents, for example JS7 - JOC Cockpit HTTPS Connections.
Users can choose one of the approachs specified with RFC5280:
- Self-issued Certificates are created individually per user and are not applicable within reasonable effort for deploying individual certificate files to JS7 products.
- Private CA-signed Certificates are issued by users who operate their own Private Certificate Authority (CA).
- Public CA-signed Certificates are issued by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) that validates the domain owner. They are not created by users but are purchased from the trusted CA and are not in scople of this article.
There is no difference in using a Private CA or Public CA concerning functionality of X.509 certificates, usage for Server Authentication / Client Authentication, or security of connections. The only difference is that users trust the Private CA that they set up on their own.
Examples in the article make use of JS7 Release 2.7.2, OpenSSL 1.1.1k FIPS 25 Mar 2021 for Unix and OpenSSL 3.1.4 24 Oct 2023 for Windows. OpenSSL ships with Linux & other Unix OS and is available for Windows.
Setting up the Private CA
Anchor |
---|
| creating_private_key_and_csr |
---|
| creating_private_key_and_csr |
---|
|
Creating the Private Key and Certificate Signing RequestUsers have the option to use ECDSA or RSA for the encryption type applied to the Private Key.
Users can run the following commands from the shell and replace the value of the ca_key_name
environment variable with a name of their choice that is used when creating related files.
Anchor |
---|
| using_ca_private_key_ecdsa |
---|
| using_ca_private_key_ecdsa |
---|
|
Using ECDSA Encryption Code Block |
---|
language | bash |
---|
title | Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using ECDSA encryption (Unix) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
|
# Specify key name used for file names
ca_key_name=root-ca
# Create Private Key
openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out ${ca_key_name}.key
# Create Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new -sha512 -nodes \
-key ${ca_key_name}.key \
-out ${ca_key_name}.csr \
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=${ca_key_name}" |
Expand |
---|
|
Code Block |
---|
language | text |
---|
title | Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using ECDSA encryption (Windows) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
| @rem Specify key name used for file names
set ca_key_name=root-ca
@rem Create Private Key
openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out %ca_key_name%.key
@rem Create Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new -sha512 -nodes ^
-key %ca_key_name%.key ^
-out %ca_key_name%.csr ^
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=%ca_key_name%" |
|
Expand |
---|
|
- Users should adjust the
ca_key_name environment variable specifying a value that matches the purpose such as root-ca for a Root CA Certificate. - 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 the Private Root CA Certificate 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 using different values.
- The following files will be created with this step:
- The
root-ca.key file will hold the Private Key. - The
root-ca.csr file will hold the Certificate Signing Request.
|
Anchor |
---|
| using_ca_private_key_rsa |
---|
| using_ca_private_key_rsa |
---|
|
Using RSA Encryption Expand |
---|
title | Click to expand/collapse... |
---|
|
| Create Root CA CertificateExample how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using RSA encryption (Unix) | linenumbers | true |
---|
| # | step 1 Generate Certificate Authority (CA)Specify key name used for file names
ca_key_name=root-ca
# Create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
openssl | ecparamname prime256v1 -genkey -noout -out root-ca.key
# step 2: Generate Certificate Authority Certificatenewkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -nodes \
-keyout ${ca_key_name}.key \
-out ${ca_key_name}.csr \
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=${ca_key_name}" |
Expand |
---|
| Code Block |
---|
language | text |
---|
title | Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using RSA encryption (Windows) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
| @rem Specify key name used for file names
set ca_key_name=root-ca
@rem Create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new - |
| x509newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -nodes ^
-keyout %ca_key_name%.key ^
-out %ca_key_name%.csr ^
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=%ca_key_name%" |
|
Expand |
---|
| - In the example the Private Key is created using the specified key size
4096 . - For use of the
-sha256 hash algorithm and -subj option see Using ECDSA Encryption. - The following files will be created with this step:
- The
root-ca.key file will hold the Private Key. - The
root-ca.csr file will hold the Certificate Signing Request.
|
|
Anchor |
---|
| creating_ca_certificate |
---|
| creating_ca_certificate |
---|
|
Creating the CA CertificateSteps include to create the root-ca.crt
Private CA-signed Certificate file in PEM format.
Users can run the following commands from the shell and replace the value of the ca_key_name
environment variable with a name of their choice that is used when creating related files.
Code Block |
---|
language | bash |
---|
title | Example how to create CA Certificate (Unix) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
|
# Specify key name used for file names
ca_key_name=root-ca
# Create Certificate
openssl x509 -req -sha512 -days 7305 \
-signkey ${ca_key_name}.key \
-in ${ca_key_name}.csr \
-out ${ca_key_name}.crt \
-extfile <(printf "basicConstraints=CA:TRUE\nkeyUsage=critical,nonRepudiation,keyCertSign,cRLSign\n") |
Expand |
---|
|
Code Block |
---|
language | text |
---|
title | Example how to create CA Certificate (Windows) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
| @rem Specify key name used for file names
set ca_key_name=root-ca
@rem Create Certificate
set ca_csr_tmp_file=ca-csr-%RANDOM%.tmp
copy /Y NUL %ca_csr_tmp_file%
echo basicConstraints=CA:TRUE >> %ca_csr_tmp_file%
echo keyUsage=critical,nonRepudiation,keyCertSign,cRLSign >> %ca_csr_tmp_file%
openssl x509 -req -sha512 -days 7305 ^
-key %ca_key_name%.key ^
-in %ca_key_name%.csr ^
-out %ca_key_name%.crt |
|
Create Server Certificate
^
-extfile %ca_csr_tmp_file%
del /q %ca_csr_tmp_file% |
|
Expand |
---|
|
- The SHA option such as
-sha256, -sha384, -sha512 can be freely chosen. - The
-days option specifies the validity period of the CA Certificate that should be longer than the validity period of individual certificates signed by the CA later on. - The
-signkey option specifies the location of the Private Key file created from the previous step. - The
-in option specifies the location of the Certificate Signing Request file created from the previous step. - The
-out option specifies the location of the resulting Certificate file. - The
-extfile option specifies the Basic Constraint CA:TRUE which is required for a CA Certificate. Key Usage is limited to signing certificates. - The following files will be created with this step:
- The
root-ca.crt file will hold the CA Certificate.
|
Creating SSL/TLS Server Certificates
For a given server next steps includes to create the Private Key and Certificate Signing Request The second step includes to create for a given server a private key and certificate request (CSR). The resulting server certificate Server Certificate will be signed by the Private CA.
This step is performed for each server certificate Server Certificate that should be created.
Run Users can run the following commands from a bash the shell and replace the value of the SERVER
server_name
environment variable with the hostname or FQDN for which the certificate should be created:a name of their choice that is used when creating related files.
Creating the Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
Anchor |
---|
| using_server_private_key_ecdsa |
---|
| using_server_private_key_ecdsa |
---|
|
Using ECDSA Encryption Code Block |
---|
language | bash |
---|
title | Create Server CertificateExample how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using ECDSA encryption (Unix) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
|
# Specify key name used for file names
server for which the certificate should be created
SERVER=somehost
# Step 1 - Generate Private Key and_name=myhost
# Create Private Key
openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out ${server_name}.key
# Create Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new -sha512 -nodes \
-key ${server_name}.key \
-out ${server_name}.csr \
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=${server_name}" |
Expand |
---|
|
Code Block |
---|
language | text |
---|
title | Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using ECDSA encryption (Windows) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
| @rem Specify key name used for file names
set server_name=myhost
@rem Create Private Key
openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out %server_name%.key
@rem Create Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new -sha512 - | config openssl-cert.config -extensions 'nodes ^
-key %server_name%.key ^
-out %server_name%.csr ^
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=%server_name%" |
|
Anchor |
---|
| using_server_private_key_rsa |
---|
| using_server_private_key_rsa |
---|
|
Using RSA Encryption Expand |
---|
title | Click to expand/collapse... |
---|
|
Code Block |
---|
language | bash |
---|
title | Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using RSA encryption (Unix) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
| # Specify key name used for file names
server_name=myhost
# Create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new | standard exts' -nodes \
-days 7300 -newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -nodes \
-keyout ${ | SERVERserver_name}.key \
-out ${server_name}.csr \
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=${server_name}" |
Expand |
---|
| Code Block |
---|
language | text |
---|
title | Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using RSA encryption (Windows) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
| @rem Specify key name used for file names
set server_name=myhost
@rem Create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -nodes ^
-keyout %server_name%.key ^
-out %server_name%.csr ^
-subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=%server_name%" |
|
|
Creating the Server Certificate
Code Block |
---|
language | bash |
---|
title | Example how to create and sign Server Certificate (Unix) |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
|
# Specify server for which the certificate should be created
server_name=myhost
# Create and sign SERVER}.csr
# Step 2 - Generate and Sign the Server Certificate
openssl x509 -req -sha512 -days 3652 \
-in ${SERVERserver_name}.csr \
-CA root-ca.crt \
-CAkey root-ca.key \
-CAcreateserial \
-out ${SERVERserver_name}.crt -days 7300 \
-extfile <(printf "'subjectAltName=DNS:${SERVER}\nnsCertType = client, server\nkeyUsage = digitalSignature, keyEncipherment\nextendedKeyUsage = serverAuth, clientAuth\n") |
...
%s\nkeyUsage=critical,keyEncipherment,digitalSignature\nextendedKeyUsage=serverAuth,clientAuth\n' "${server_name}") |
Expand |
---|
|
Code Block |
---|
language | text |
---|
title | Example how to create and sign Server Certificate (Windows) |
---|
|
|
Code Block |
---|
title | OpenSSL configuration file openssl-cert.config[req]
promptkey name used for file names
set server_name=myhost
@rem Create and sign Server | = no
distinguished_name = standard dn
[ standard dn ]
commonName = somehostCertificate
set server_crt_tmp_file=server-crt-%RANDOM%.tmp
copy /Y NUL %server_crt_tmp_file%
echo subjectAltName=DNS:%server_name% >> %server_crt_tmp_file%
echo keyUsage=critical,keyEncipherment,digitalSignature >> %server_crt_tmp_file%
echo extendedKeyUsage=serverAuth,clientAuth >> %server_crt_tmp_file%
openssl x509 -req -sha512 -days 3652 ^
-in %server_name%.csr ^
| countryName = DE-CA root-ca.crt ^
-CAkey root-ca.key ^
| localityName = Berlin organizationName = SOS
organizationalUnitName = JS7
stateOrProvinceName = Berlin
[ standard exts ]
extendedKeyUsage = serverAuth,clientAuth |
---|
Resources
Links
%server_name%.crt ^
-extfile %server_crt_tmp_file%
del /q %server_crt_tmp_file% |
|
Expand |
---|
|
- The following files will be created for the given server:
myhost .crt : the Server Certificate
- For operation with JS7 JOC Cockpit, Controller and Agents users can add
|
Resources
Shell Scripts
As an alternative to running OpenSSL commands in an interactive shell some , scripts are provided that perform this task.
...
<ca>
The directory <ca>
is a placeholder. Any directory can be used.create_root_ca.sh
create_server_certificate.sh
certs
csr
private
The sub-directories certs
, csr
and private
will be created from the below scripts should they not exist.
...
Creating the Private Root CA Certificate
Download: create_root_ca.sh
The following files will be created when executing the script:
<ca>/certs/root-ca.crt
<ca>/csr/root-ca.csr
<ca>/private/root-ca.key
This step is performed just once. In case of repeated execution a new of renewal of the Root CA Certificate will be created and server certificates any Server Certificates will have to be renewed.
...
Code Block |
---|
language | bash |
---|
title | Run .create_root_ca.sh |
---|
|
...
...
|
codelinenumbers | title | Run .true |
---|
|
# Description
# create_root_ca.sh --key-name=<basename> --subject=<distinguished-name> --days=<number-of-days>
# Example for use with defaults
./create_root_ca.sh
# Example for use with basename
./create_root_ca.sh --key-name=ca-root
# Example applying specific distinguished name and lifetime
./create_root_ca.sh --subject="/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=JS7 CA" --days=7660 |
The shell script
...
./create_root_ca.sh
Create Certificate from Shell Script
is optionally executed with the following arguments:
--key-name
- The basename of the key without extension. Default:
root-ca
--subject
- The distinguished name that is used as the subject of the CA Certificate. Default:
/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=Root CA
--days
- The lifetime of the certificate is specified by the number of days. Default:
7305
- Consider that Server Certificates have to be renewed if the Root CA Certificate expires.
Creating a Server Certificate
Download: create_server_certificate.sh
The following files will be created with <server>
being a placeholder for the hostname of the indicated serverfor which a certificate should be created.
<ca>/certs/<server>.crt
<ca>/certscsr/<server>.csr
<ca>/private/<server>.key
This step is performed for each server certificate Server Certificate that should be created.
...
Code Block |
---|
language | bash |
---|
title | Run .create_server |
---|
|
...
_certificate.sh shell script | linenumbers | true |
---|
|
# Description
# create_server_certificate.sh --dns=<hostname>[,<hostname>] --key-name=<basename> --subject=<distinguished-name> --days=<number-of-days>
# Example for use with DNS and lifetime
./create_server_certificate.sh --dns=centostest-primary --days=365
# Example for use with DNS, key name and lifetime
./create_server_certificate.sh --dns=centostest-primary,centostest-primary.sos --key-name=centostest-primary --days=4017
# Example for use with DNS, subject and lifetime
./create_server_certificate.sh --dns=centostest-primary,centostest-primary.sos --subject="/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=centostest-primary.sos" --days=4017 |
The shell script is executed with
...
the following arguments:
--dns
(required)- The DNS hostname of the server that should receive be assigned the certificate. A server can be assigned more than one DNS hostname, for example its the FQDN can be different. All DNS hostnames have to be extend the hostname. Only DNS hostnames that are added to the certificate in order to secure connections.can be used later on to establish secure HTTPS connections.
--key-name
- The basename of the key without extension. Default:
root-ca
--subject
- The distinguished name that is used as the subject of the Server Certificate. Default:
/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=<dns>
- The
CN
attribute must specify the server's hostname. By default the first hostname specified with the --dns
option is used.
--days
- The lifetime of the certificate is specified by the number of days. Default:
3652
...
title | Run .create_certificate.sh shell script |
---|
linenumbers | true |
---|
Links
...