[Freeipa-users] Rekey Self-signed CA

[Rob Crittenden]

Greg Harris wrote:
>> No worries then. The IPA CA (dogtag) uses NSS for crypto so there is no way the CA private key could have been exposed.
>>
>> If you've issued SSL certs from the IPA CA for services running OpenSSL you could re-issue those to be on the safe side, but IPA itself uses only NSS on its servers.
>>
>> rob
>>
> Ok, that makes sense.  I figured out that the back end, dogtag, was using NSS, but it looked like the web GUI was using OpenSSL.  Re-issuing SSL certs for services looks simple enough through the GUI.  Thanks for your help.

The GUI uses NSS as well, via mod_nss. We use OpenSSL for some client 
libraries in IPA, but so far no servers. We dodged a bullet there.

> All that aside, is there a way to rekey the IPA CA?  I’d hate to see the same type of vulnerability announced next week for NSS and not have any recourse.

No. You don't re-key a CA, you create a new one. If the CA private key 
is exposed then it's game over. We don't currently provide a way to rip 
out the CA and install a replacement. I'm going to get my thoughts 
together and file an IPA ticket to look into that. It is a non-trivial 
thing though, and with replication it only gets more interesting.

rob