[Fedora-directory-users] TLS for dummies

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 21:19 -0800, Howard Chu wrote:
> fedora-directory-users-request at redhat.com wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 12:31:01 -0700
> > From: David Boreham <david_list at boreham.org>
> >
> >   
> >> My thinking is that this somehow has something to do with the TLS_CACERT
> >> in /etc/openldap/ldap.conf (the certificate for the client).
> >>  
> >>
> >>     
> > In general most folk don't need client certs, but AFAIK the openldap 
> > ldapsearch _requires_ that you present a client cert.
> >   
> 
> 
> Wrong. Client certs are only needed if you want to do certificate-based 
> client authentication, and the default settings do not require them. Of 
> course, the TLS_CACERT directive, as the name suggests, is for setting 
> the path to the CA cert, and by default it *is* required. I think your 
> terminology is imprecise here, so that may be confusing the issue.
----
indeed - awesome clarification - thanks
----
> 
> >> Would this be the issue?
> >>  
> >>
> >>     
> > Probably yes. Shouldn't you be using a user-specific ldap.conf for your 
> > client-side config ?
> >
> >   
> >> Is there a better method for creating the client certificate from either
> >> the CA certificate (generated by openssl) or from the FDS Server
> >> Certificate (also generated by openssl)?
> >>  
> >>
> >>     
> > Provided the client cert was signed by the same CA as the server cert,
> > you should be ok. The client cert has no relationship per se with the
> > server cert.
> >   
> 
> Again, the poster was referring to the CA cert on the client, not a 
> "client cert," so dragging that into the discussion is only muddying things.
> 
> Note that the original poster used TLS_CACERT and TLS_CACERTDIR and the 
> OpenLDAP docs specifically state to use only one or the other, and in 
> general, not to use TLS_CACERTDIR at all. This is the real error; 
> TLS_CACERT must be a fully qualified path to a certificate file.
----
the original poster was completely confused by this and has now learned
much from the clarification provided.

Thanks Howard

Craig