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Managing Certificates

The OSG provides several tools to assist in the management of host and CA certificates. This page serves as a reference guide for several of these tools:

  • osg-pki-tools: command line tools for requesting and managing user and host certificates.
  • osg-ca-certs-updater: A package for auto-updating CAs on a server host.
  • osg-ca-manage: A tool for detailed management of CA directories outside RPMs.

Note

This is a reference document and not introduction on how to install CA certificates or request host / user certificates. Most users will want the CA overview, host certificate overview, or user certificate overview documents.

OSG PKI Command Line Clients

Overview

The OSG PKI Command Line Clients provide a command-line interface for creating certificate signing requests (CSRs).

Prerequisites

If you have not already done so, you need to configure the OSG software repositories.

Installation

The command-line scripts have been packaged as an RPM and are available from the OSG repositories.

To install the RPM, run:

[email protected] # yum install osg-pki-tools

Usage

Documentation for usage of the osg-pki-tools can be found here

OSG CA Certificates Updater

This section explains the installation and use of osg-ca-certs-updater, a package that provides automatic updates of CA certificates.

Requirements

As with all OSG software installations, there are some one-time (per host) steps to prepare in advance:

Install instructions

Run the following command to install the latest version of the updater.

[email protected]# yum install osg-ca-certs-updater

Services

Starting and Enabling Services

Run the following to enable the updater. This will persist until the machine is rebooted.

[email protected]# service osg-ca-certs-updater-cron start

Run the following to enable the updater when the machine is rebooted.

[email protected]# chkconfig osg-ca-certs-updater-cron on

Run both commands if you wish for the service to activate immediately and remain active throughout reboots.

Stopping and Disabling Services

Enter the following to disable the updater. This will persist until the machine is rebooted.

[email protected]# service osg-ca-certs-updater-cron stop

Enter the following to disable the updater when the machine is rebooted.

[email protected]# chkconfig osg-ca-certs-updater-cron off

Run both commands if you wish for the service to deactivate immediately and not get reactivated during reboots.

Configuration

While there is no configuration file, the behavior of the updater can be adjusted by command-line arguments that are specified in the cron entry of the service. This entry is located in the file /etc/cron.d/osg-ca-certs-updater. Please see the Unix manual page for crontab in section 5 for an explanation of the format. The manual page can be accessed by the command man 5 crontab. The valid command-line arguments can be listed by running osg-ca-certs-updater --help. Reasonable defaults have been provided, namely:

  • Attempt an update no more often than every 23 hours. Due to the random wait (see below), having a 24-hour minimum time between updates would cause the update time to slowly slide back every day.
  • Run the script every 6 hours. We run the script more often than we update so that downtime at the wrong moment does not cause the update to be delayed for a full day.
  • Delay for a random amount of time up to 30 minutes before updating, to reduce load spikes on OSG repositories.
  • Do not warn the administrator about update failures that have happened less than 72 hours since the last successful update.
  • Log errors only.

Troubleshooting

Useful configuration and log files

Configuration file
Package File Description Location Comment
osg-ca-certs-updater Cron entry for periodically launching the updater /etc/cron.d/osg-ca-certs-updater Command-line arguments to the updater can be specified here
osg-release Repo definition files for production OSG repositories /etc/yum.repos.d/osg.repo or /etc/yum.repos.d/osg-el6.repo Make sure these repositories are enabled and reachable from the host you are trying to update

Log files

Logging is performed to the console by default. Please see the manual for your cron daemon to find out how it handles console output.

A logfile can be specified via the -l / --logfile command-line option.

If logging to syslog via the -s / --log-to-syslog option, the updater will write to the user section of the syslog. The file /etc/syslog.conf determines where syslog messages are saved.

References

Some guides on X.509 certificates:

Some examples about verifying the certificates:

Managing CAs

The osg-ca-manage tool provides a unified interface to manage the CA Certificate installations. This page provides the instructions on using this command. It provides status commands that allows you to list the CAs and the validity of the CAs and CRLs included in the installation. The manage commands allow you to fetch CAs and CRLs, change the distribution URL, as well as add and remove CAs from your local installation.

Usage examples

Documentation for usage of the osg-ca-manage tool can be found here

Note

These commands will not work if of the osg-ca-certs (or igtf-ca-certs) RPM packages are installed.

Install a certificate authority package

Before you proceed to install a Certificate Authority Package you should decide which of the available packages to install.

  • osg, the package recommended to be used by production resources on the OSG. It is based on the CA distribution from the IGTF, but it may differ slightly as decided by the Security Team.
  • igtf, the package is a redistribution of the unchanged CA distribution from the IGTF
  • url a package provided at a given URL

Note

If in doubt, please consult the policies of your home institution and get in contact with the Security Team.

Next decide at what location to install the Certificate Authority Package:

  1. on the root file system in a system directory /etc/grid-security/certificates
  2. in a custom directory that can also be shared
Setup the CA certificates

The Certificate Authority Package is preferably be used by grid users without root privileges or if the CA certificates will not be shared by other installations on the same host.

[email protected] # osg-ca-manage setupca --location root --url osg
Setting CA Certificates for at '/etc/grid-security/certificates'

Setup completed successfully.

After a successful installation the certificates will be installed in (/etc/grid-security/certificates in this example). Typically to write into this default location you will need root privileges.

If you need to need to install it with out root privileges use

[email protected] $ osg-ca-manage setupca --location $HOME/certificates --url osg
Setting CA Certificates for at '$HOME/certificates'

Setup completed successfully.

Adding a directory of local CAs

[email protected] #osg-ca-manage add --cadir /etc/grid-security/localca
NOTE:
    You did not specify the --auto-refresh flag.
    So the changes made to the configuration will not be reflected till the next time
    when CAs and CRLs are updated respectively by osg-update-certs and fetch-crl running from cron.
    Run `osg-ca-manage refreshCA` and `osg-ca-manage fetchCRL` to commit your changes immediately.

Here is the resulting file after add

##cat /etc/osg/osg-update-certs.conf
# Configuration file for osg-update-certs

# This file has been regenerated by osg-ca-manage, which removes most
# comments.  You can still manually modify it, any manual change will
# be preserved if osg-ca-manage is used again.

## The parent location certificates will be installed at.
install_dir = /etc/grid-security

## cacerts_url is the URL of your certificate distribution
cacerts_url = https://repo.opensciencegrid.org/pacman/cadist/ca-certs-version-igtf-new

## log specifies where logging output will go
log = /var/log/osg-update-certs.log

## include specifies files (full pathnames) that should be copied
## into the certificates installation after an update has occured.
include=/etc/grid-security/localca/*

## exclude_ca specifies a CA (not full pathnames, but just the hash
## of the CA you want to exclude) that should be removed from the
## certificates installation after an update has occured.

debug = 0

Removing a directory of local CAs

[email protected] #osg-ca-manage remove --cadir /etc/grid-security/localca
NOTE:
    You did not specify the --auto-refresh flag.
    So the changes made to the configuration will not be reflected till the next time
    when CAs and CRLs are updated respectively by osg-update-certs and fetch-crl running from cron.
    Run `osg-ca-manage refreshCA` and `osg-ca-manage fetchCRL` to commit your changes immediately.

Removing a particular CA included in OSG CA package

[email protected] #osg-ca-manage remove --caname ce33db76
Symlink detected for hash: We have determided that the hash value you entered belong to the CA 'IRAN-GRID.pem'. If you wish to add this CA back you will have to use this name is the parameter.
NOTE:
    You did not specify the --auto-refresh flag.
    So the changes made to the configuration will not be reflected till the next time
    when CAs and CRLs are updated respectively by osg-update-certs and fetch-crl running from cron.
    Run `osg-ca-manage refreshCA` and `osg-ca-manage fetchCRL` to commit your changes immediately.

The resulting config file after the remove is as follows

##cat /etc/osg/osg-update-certs.conf
# Configuration file for osg-update-certs

# This file has been regenerated by osg-ca-manage, which removes most
# comments.  You can still manually modify it, any manual change will
# be preserved if osg-ca-manage is used again.

## The parent location certificates will be installed at.
install_dir = /etc/grid-security

## cacerts_url is the URL of your certificate distribution
cacerts_url = https://repo.opensciencegrid.org/pacman/cadist/ca-certs-version-igtf-new

## log specifies where logging output will go
log = /var/log/osg-update-certs.log

## include specifies files (full pathnames) that should be copied
## into the certificates installation after an update has occured.

## exclude_ca specifies a CA (not full pathnames, but just the hash
## of the CA you want to exclude) that should be removed from the
## certificates installation after an update has occured.
exclude_ca = IRAN-GRID

debug = 0

Adding a CA from the OSG CA package

[email protected] #osg-ca-manage add --caname IRAN-GRID
NOTE:
    You did not specify the --auto-refresh flag.
    So the changes made to the configuration will not be reflected till the next time
    when CAs and CRLs are updated respectively by osg-update-certs and fetch-crl running from cron.
    Run `osg-ca-manage refreshCA` and `osg-ca-manage fetchCRL` to commit your changes immediately.

Inspect installed CA certificates

You can inspect the list of CA Certificates that have been installed:

[email protected] $ osg-ca-manage listCA
Hash=09ff08b7; Subject= /C=FR/O=CNRS/CN=CNRS2-Projets; Issuer= /C=FR/O=CNRS/CN=CNRS2; Accreditation=Unknown; Status=https://repo.opensciencegrid.org/pacman/cadist/ca-certs-version-new
Hash=0a12b607; Subject= /DC=org/DC=ugrid/CN=UGRID CA; Issuer= /DC=org/DC=ugrid/CN=UGRID CA; Accreditation=Unknown; Status=https://repo.opensciencegrid.org/pacman/cadist/ca-certs-version-new
[...]

Any certificate issued by any of the Certificate Authorities listed will be trusted. If in doubt please contact the OSG Security Team and review the policies of your home institution.

Troubleshooting

Useful configuration and log files

Logs and configuration:

File Description Location Comment
Configuration File for osg-update-certs /etc/osg/osg-update-certs.conf This file may be edited by hand, though it is recommended to use osg-ca-manage to set configuration parameters.
Log file of osg-update-certs /var/log/osg-update-certs.log
Stdout of osg-update-certs /var/log/osg-ca-certs-status.system.out
Stdout of osg-ca-manage /var/log/osg-ca-manage.system.out
Stdout of initial CA setup /var/log/osg-setup-ca-certificates.system.out

References

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. 1148698 and 1836650 . Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.