[Freeipa-users] IPA 4.2: pki-tomcatd in terrible shape

Timothy Geier tgeier at accertify.com
Thu Feb 4 18:13:09 UTC 2016 

Greetings all,

For the record,this is a CentOS 7.2 box with all current patches. (ipa-server-4.2.0-15.el7.centos.3.x86_64, etc.)

The situation is that pki-tomcatd on the lone CA server in our IPA cluster refuses to start cleanly.  The issues started earlier this week after the certs
subsystemCert, ocspSigningCert, and auditSigningCert all simultaneously expired without warning; apparently, certmonger failed to renew them automatically.  We
attempted timeshifting and following instructions for what appeared to be similar issues, but nothing at all has worked.  

Today, we attempted removing the certificates in question (of course, the files in /etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias were backed up beforehand) and using certutil to issue new  certificates.   This process worked but pki-tomcatd is still refusing to start.  We can get IPA to run on this server by manually starting pki-tomcatd, running ipactl start, and then ctrl-c’ing it when it gets to "Starting pki-tomcatd" but this is not a tenable long-term solution.

Relevant log entries/information:

/var/log/pki/pki-tomcat/ca/debug:
Could not connect to LDAP server host ipa01.XXXXXXXXX.net port 636 Error netscape.ldap.LDAPException: IO Error creating JSS SSL Socket (-1)
Internal Database Error encountered: Could not connect to LDAP server host ipa01.XXXXXXXXX.net port 636 Error netscape.ldap.LDAPException: IO Error creating JSS SSL Socket (-1)
Internal Database Error encountered: Could not connect to LDAP server host ipa01.XXXXXXXXX.net port 636 Error netscape.ldap.LDAPException: Authentication failed (49)

/var/log/pki/pki-tomcat/localhost.2016-02-04.log:
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext loadOnStartup
SEVERE: Servlet /ca threw load() exception
java.lang.NullPointerException

# getcert list:

Number of certificates and requests being tracked: 8.
Request ID '20151015022737':
	status: MONITORING
	ca-error: Error setting up ccache for "host" service on client using default keytab: Generic error (see e-text).
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/dirsrv/slapd-XXXXXXXXX-NET',nickname='Server-Cert',token='NSS Certificate DB',pinfile='/etc/dirsrv/slapd-XXXXXXXXX-NET/pwdfile.txt'
	expires: 2017-10-15 02:09:06 UTC
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes
Request ID '20151015022949':
	status: MONITORING
	ca-error: Error setting up ccache for "host" service on client using default keytab: Generic error (see e-text).
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/httpd/alias',nickname='Server-Cert',token='NSS Certificate DB',pinfile='/etc/httpd/alias/pwdfile.txt'
	certificate: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/httpd/alias',nickname='Server-Cert',token='NSS Certificate DB'
	expires: 2017-10-15 02:09:10 UTC
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes
Request ID '20160127202548':
	status: MONITORING
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='caSigningCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB',pin set
	certificate: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='caSigningCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB'
	expires: 2034-02-11 19:46:43 UTC
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes
Request ID '20160127202549':
	status: MONITORING
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/httpd/alias',nickname='ipaCert',token='NSS Certificate DB',pinfile='/etc/httpd/alias/pwdfile.txt'
	certificate: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/httpd/alias',nickname='ipaCert',token='NSS Certificate DB'
	expires: 2017-12-25 04:27:49 UTC
	key usage: digitalSignature,nonRepudiation,keyEncipherment,dataEncipherment
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes
Request ID '20160127202550':
	status: MONITORING
	ca-error: Server at "http://ipa01.XXXXXXXXX.net:8080/ca/ee/ca/profileSubmit" replied: Profile caServerCert Not Found
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='Server-Cert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB',pin set
	certificate: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='Server-Cert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB'
	expires: 2017-10-04 02:28:53 UTC
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes
Request ID '20160204165453':
	status: MONITORING
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='auditSigningCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB',pin set
	certificate: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='auditSigningCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB'
	expires: 2016-05-04 16:40:23 UTC
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes
Request ID '20160204170246':
	status: MONITORING
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='ocspSigningCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB',pin set
	certificate: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='ocspSigningCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB'
	expires: 2016-05-04 16:59:18 UTC
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes
Request ID '20160204170752':
	status: MONITORING
	stuck: no
	key pair storage: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='subsystemCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB',pin set
	certificate: type=NSSDB,location='/etc/pki/pki-tomcat/alias',nickname='subsystemCert cert-pki-ca',token='NSS Certificate DB'
	expires: 2016-05-04 17:05:29 UTC
	track: yes
	auto-renew: yes

# certutil -L -d /var/lib/pki/pki-tomcat/alias/

Certificate Nickname                                         Trust Attributes
                                                             SSL,S/MIME,JAR/XPI
auditSigningCert cert-pki-ca                                 u,u,Pu
ocspSigningCert cert-pki-ca                                  u,u,u
caSigningCert cert-pki-ca                                    CTu,Cu,Cu
subsystemCert cert-pki-ca                                    u,u,u
Server-Cert cert-pki-ca                                      u,u,u

# certutil -L -d /etc/dirsrv/slapd-XXXXXXXXX-NET/

Certificate Nickname                                         Trust Attributes
                                                             SSL,S/MIME,JAR/XPI
Server-Cert                                                                 u,u,u
XXXXXXXXX.NET IPA CA                                         CT,C,C



The only thing that making new certs seemed to resolve was removing these errors from /var/log/pki/pki-tomcat/ca/system :

Cannot authenticate agent with certificate Serial <redacted> Subject DN CN=IPA RA,O=XXXXXXXXX.NET. Error: User not found

Thus, the root cause(s) appears to be something else entirely that we are totally unfamilar with..we can provide any other required information to help with troubleshooting.

Thanks much for any and all assistance,


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