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Introduction

SSL/TLS Certificates are used to secure HTTP connections between JS7 products, for example JS7 - JOC Cockpit HTTPS Connections.

Users have a choice to use Private CA-signed Certificates and Public CA-signed Certificates:

  • 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 therefore are not considered by the article.

There is no difference concerning the type of X.509 certificates, the usage for Server Authentication / Client Authentication, or the security of connections.

Examples in the article make use of OpenSSL 1.1.1k  FIPS 25 Mar 2021 and JS7 Release 2.7.2. OpenSSL ships with Linux & other Unix OS and is available for Windows. The examples are focused on Unix.

Setting up the Private CA

Creating the Private Key and Certificate Signing Request

Users 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.

Using ECDSA Encryption

Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using ECDSA encryption
# 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 (CSR)
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}"
  • 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.

Using RSA Encryption

Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using RSA encryption
# Specify key name used for file names
ca_key_name=root-ca

# Create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request (CSR)
openssl req -new -newkey 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}"
  • In the example the Private Key is created using the specified key size 4096.
  • Choice of algorithm such as secp256k1, secp384r1 depends on support by the Java version used with JS7.
  • For use of the -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.

Creating the CA Certificate

Steps 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.

Example how to create CA Certificate
# 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")
  • 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 (CSR). The resulting Server Certificate will be signed by the Private CA. 

This step is performed for each Server Certificate that should be created.

Users can run the following commands from the shell and replace the value of the server_name environment variable with a name of their choice that is used when creating related files.

Creating Private Key and Certificate Signing Request

Using ECDSA Encryption

Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using ECDSA encryption
# Specify key name used for file names
server_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}"

Using RSA Encryption

Example how to create Private Key and Certificate Signing Request using RSA encryption
# Specify key name used for file names
server_name=myhost

# 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}"

Explanations:


Creating and signing Certificate

Example how to create and sign Server Certificate
# Specify server for which the certificate should be created
server_name=myhost

# Create and sign Server Certificate
openssl x509 -req -sha512 -days 3652 \
    -in ${server_name}.csr \
    -CA root-ca.crt \
    -CAkey root-ca.key \
    -CAcreateserial \
    -out ${server_name}.crt \
    -extfile <(printf 'subjectAltName=DNS:%s\nkeyUsage=critical,keyEncipherment\nextendedKeyUsage=serverAuth,clientAuth\n' "${server_name}")
  • 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

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