Introduction
JS7 - Deployment of Scheduling Objects makes use of Signing Certificates to digitally sign workflows and other objects. Use of certificates for signing is not related to use of certificates to secure connections using HTTPS.
- Certificates for the specific use of code signing must be used.
- Users choose which approach they want to follow:
- Creating self-issued Certificates.
- Creating Private CA-signed Certificates.
- Purchasing Public CA-signed Certificates
Rollout of certificates to Controllers and Agents depends on the following choice:
- Self-issued Certificates have to be deployed from individual certificate files made available to Controllers and Agents.
- There is no security gap in use of self-issued Certificates. When users store certificate files to Controllers and Agents then this proves that they trust the certificates.
- Private CA-signed Certificates are issued by users who operate their own Private Certificate Authority (CA). Individual Signing Certficates on behalf of users are not deployed to Controllers and Agents. Instead, the CA Certificate is deployed that was used to sign individual Signing 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 Private 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 in the article.
There is no difference in using a Private CA or Public CA concerning the functionality of X.509 certificates, usage for Signing, or security of certificates. The only difference is that users trust the Private CA that they set up on their own.
Self-issued Certificates and Private CA Certificates are deployed to the <data>/config/private/trusted-x509-keys
directory of Controller and Agent instances.
The article explains how to create Signing Certificates for use with JS7. Users who operate an existing Private Certificate Authority might find different approaches and different responsibilities for the indicated steps. There's more than one way how to do it.
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.
Creating the Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
The steps to create a Private Key and Certificate Signing Request are the same for use of self-issued Certificates and Private CA-signed Certificates. 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 key_name
environment variable with a name of their choice that is used when creating related files.
Using ECDSA Encryption
# Specify key name used for file names key_name=signing # Create Private Key openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out ${key_name}.key # Create Certificate Signing Request openssl req -new -sha512 -nodes \ -key ${key_name}.key \ -out ${key_name}.csr \ -subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=${key_name}"
Using RSA Encryption
Creating Certificates
Users have the option to create self-signed Certificates or Private CA-signed Certificates.
Creating self-signed Certificates
Users can run the following commands from the shell and replace the value of the key_name
environment variable with a name of their choice that is used when creating related files.
# Specify key name used for file names key_name=signing # Create Certificate openssl x509 -req -sha512 -days 3652 \ -signkey ${key_name}.key \ -in ${key_name}.csr \ -out ${key_name}.crt \ -extfile <(printf "keyUsage=critical,nonRepudiation,digitalSignature\nextendedKeyUsage=critical,codeSigning\n")
Self-signed Certificates must be copied to the <data>/config/private/trusted-x509-keys
directory of Controller and Agent instances.
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 on behalf of users.
- Setup of the Certificate Authority is performed once.
- Signing is performed for each certificate on behalf of users.
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.
Creating the CA Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
Steps include to create the signing-ca.key
CA Private Key file and signing-ca.csr
CA Certificate Signing Request file both 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.
# Specify key name used for file names ca_key_name=signing-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}"
Creating the CA Certificate
Steps include to create the signing-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.
# Specify key name used for file names ca_key_name=signing-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 CA Certificate must be copied to the <data>/config/private/trusted-x509-keys
directory of Controller and Agent instances.
Creating Signing Certificates
Creating the Signing Private Key and Certificate Signing Request
Steps include to create the signing.key
Private Key file and signing.csr
Certificate Signing Request file both in PEM format.
Users can run the following commands from the shell and replace the value of the key_name
environment variable with a name of their choice that is used when creating related files.
# Specify key name used for file names key_name=signing # Create Private Key openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp384r1 -out ${key_name}.key # Create Certificate Signing Request openssl req -new -sha512 -nodes \ -key ${key_name}.key \ -out ${key_name}.csr \ -subj "/C=DE/ST=Berlin/L=Berlin/O=SOS/OU=IT/CN=${key_name}"
Creating the Signing Certificate
Steps include to create the signing.crt
Private CA-signed Certificate file in PEM format.
Users can run the following commands from the shell and replace the value of the key_name
environment variable with a name of their choice that is used when creating related files:
# Specify key name used for file names key_name=signing # Create Certificate openssl x509 -req -sha512 -days 3652 \ -in ${key_name}.csr \ -CA signing-ca.crt \ -CAkey signing-ca.key \ -CAcreateserial \ -out ${key_name}.crt \ -extfile <(printf '\nkeyUsage=critical,nonRepudiation,digitalSignature\nextendedKeyUsage=critical,codeSigning\n')
The Signing Certificate file does not require to be deployed to Controller and Agent instances. Instead, the CA Certificate file is deployed to Controller and Agent instances.