[Fedora-directory-users] Converting a 4-way replication setup to SSL

[Edward Fochler]

I've been using XCA as my program of choice for handling CA stuff.   
It's nice, powerful, relatively friendly, etc.  I create the root CA,  
get all of my servers to trust that, and issue individual certs based  
off of that CA for each of my servers.  That much has worked very well.

I didn't use any scripts for this.  And I absolutely hate the openssl  
command line options.  Your mileage may vary.

	ED.

On Jul 11, 2006, at 8:52 am, Rob Crittenden wrote:

> Philip Kime wrote:
>> What a nightmare.
>>  I tried to use the script on the Wiki but this isn't really set  
>> up to do
>> this. I would like one CA and then to generate all of the DS and AS
>> certificates from this. I can't work out if I need to copy the CA  
>> db or
>> just the .asc file to the other servers to generate the certs - it  
>> seems
>> to need the key for the CA cert and also the noise and pwd files? I
>> finally got two servers on SSL but they won't replicate as they don't
>> like each other's certificates even though I had the CA certs on both
>> servers.
>>  I have spent eight hours getting nowhere and will have to start  
>> again
>> from scratch. If there are any clues on how to:
>>  Have one CA for all server certs
>> How to install this CA cert on all servers
>> What is needed for replication over SSL to work
>>
>
> It sounds like you're trying to use the setupssl.sh script from the  
> How to at http://directory.fedora.redhat.com/wiki/Howto:SSL. It  
> isn't really designed to be a poor-man's CA, as you're seeing.
>
> I can't help with the replication but I can help getting SSL set up.
>
> It should be possible to use this setupssl.sh script, here is one  
> way. Just know that setting up a PKI infrastructure is hard (and  
> harder to do properly). If this CA is going to be only used for the  
> replication agreements it's probably fine. If you want to use it  
> for web servers, client certificates, LDAP-based login, you may  
> want to spend some time planning.
>
> In any case, let's jump right in.
>
> Normally when one has a CA you keep the key material locked away  
> and just pulled it out when you want to issue a new certificate. If  
> you really are going to use this just for replication agreements  
> this is less a problem.
>
> I'm assuming you have 4 servers, A-D, and each server only 1  
> instance installed.
>
> So, start with server A, and blow away /opt/fedora-ds/alias/slapd- 
> <instance>-*.db (or better, make a copy somewhere in case you ever  
> want it).
>
> This is going to be our "master" server. Run setupssl.sh.
>
> You now have a self-signed CA that has issued a server certificate  
> for server A. The nickname is Server-Cert.
>
> Now you could just copy this whole certificate database to the  
> other machines, tweak setupssl.sh a bit, and re-run it and get your  
> certificates that way, but you'd really be spreading your CA keys  
> all over the place, so I'm not going to do that.
>
> Instead we're going to use the server A certificate database to  
> generate the 3 remaining certificates we need.
>
> You'll do this 3 times:
>
> 1. edit setupssl.sh and find step 7
> 2. replace myhost=`hostname --fqdn` with myhost="foo.domain.com"  
> where foo.domain.com is the output of hostname -fqdn on the target  
> server (B, C or D).
> 3. Find the certutil line 2 lines below this myhost statement  
> you'll see something like "-m 1001". Increment this starting from  
> 1003. This is the certificate serial number and it needs to be  
> unique. 1002 is the server A admin server certificate.
> 4. in the same line you'll see -n "Server-Cert". This nickname  
> needs to be unique, pick another one. It could be Server-CertB, a  
> name, it isn't important as long as it is unique.
> 5. run setupssl.sh
>
> Now that you've done this 3 times, you now have in server A a  
> certificate database with a CA certificate and 4 server  
> certificates (5 if you count the admin one)
>
> IMPORTANT: there is a trailing dash (-) at the end of each -P  
> argument. If you do not have this dash things will not work.
>
> Now we need to export the 3 other server certificates, we do this  
> with:
>
> # cd /opt/fedora-ds/alias
> # ../shared/bin/pk12util -o serverb.p12 -P slapd-<instance>- -d . - 
> n "Server-CertB"
>
> Do this for each of the 3 nicknames you created.
>
> Do the following on servers B - D. Note that the prefix for slapd- 
> <instance> will likely be different for each server.
>
> 1. Copy the appropriate server?.p12 and the file cacert.asc to /opt/ 
> fedora-ds/alias on the target server (B,C,D)
> 2. Remove/archive *.db
> 3. Generate a new database with:
>   # ../shared/bin/certutil -N -P slapd-<instance>- -d .
> 4. Import the CA certificate with:
>   # ../shared/bin/certutil -A -d . -P slapd-<instance>- -n "CA  
> certificate" -t "CT,," -a -i cacert.asc
> 5. Import your server certificate with:
>   # ../shared/bin/pk12util -i serverb.p12 -P slapd-<instance>- -d .  
> -n "Server-CertB"
> 6. Check ownership/permissions of the database(s). They should be  
> owned by nobody by default.
>
> I think it would probably best to do this just on Server A and B  
> and give it a quick test. You can always go back and add in C and D  
> later.
>
> This would be infinitely easier if you had a real CA.
>
> There are also easier ways to do this using a combination of the  
> java console and the command-line, but I've stuck with the command- 
> line here.
>
> rob
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