Re: RE: some questions on using ssl with fds

Richard Megginson <rmeggins@xxxxxxxxxx> · Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:03:57 -0700

Bliss, Aaron wrote:

I would say the machines are pretty locked down; I've ran the bastille
scripts against them, used CIS scoring tool to lock them down even more
and they are of course behind our dmz....Normal users would never get a
direct shell on the directory servers; the only other user that would
have shell access to the boxes would be our security administrator.  

Then it's probably ok, but an HSM would be better if you can afford it.

Aaron 

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Megginson [mailto:rmeggins@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 4:51 PM
To: General discussion list for the Fedora Directory server project.
Cc: Bliss, Aaron
Subject: Re:  RE: some questions on using ssl
with fds

Bliss, Aaron wrote:

I'm happy to report that I got things working.  As noted in my slapd 
log file,

[15/Jan/2006:15:32:05 -0500] - Fedora-Directory/1.0.1 B2005.342.165 
starting up
[15/Jan/2006:15:32:05 -0500] - slapd started.  Listening on All 
Interfaces port
389 for LDAP requests
[15/Jan/2006:15:32:05 -0500] - Listening on All Interfaces port 636 for

LDAPS re Quests

After following document listed below under section labeled starting 
the directory server with ssl enabled, both servers are accepting 
requests on 389 and 636.

Excellent.

I have a question though; how much of a security threat would it pose 
if I used a password file to start the directory server automatically?

That depends - how secure is your machine?

Thanks very much to the fds developers, mailing list users and the 
designers of documentation.

Aaron

-----Original Message-----
From: Bliss, Aaron
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 2:26 PM
To: 'General discussion list for the Fedora Directory server project.'
Subject: RE: some questions on using ssl with fds

I believe that I'm very close to getting this to work for me.  This is 
what I've done:

1. created my own CA certificate by running this openssl req -new -x509

-keyout private/cakey.pem -out cacert.pem

2. using the gui, I followed the steps listed here
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/dir-server/ag/7.1/ssl.html#1085091
under Obtaining and Installing server certificates, including the step 
4 marked Trust the certificate authority.  Everything to this point 
looks great; on each directory server the server certificates look fine

including verifying that my new CA is listed and verified under the CA 
certs tab.

I believe at this point that each directory server will inherently 
trust each other's server certificate, as their own certificates were 
signed by my own CA.  Is this true?  If so, can someone tell me what 
the next step is to enable ssl replication between the 2 directory 
servers as well as secure client authentication?  Thanks very much.

Aaron

-----Original Message-----
From: Bliss, Aaron
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 10:26 PM
To: General discussion list for the Fedora Directory server project.
Subject: some questions on using ssl with fds

These are some basic questions that I'm sure you guys will know how to 
answer straight away.  Please forgive my ignorance, as I'm still trying

to understand how ssl works and how to get it to work in fds both for 
my directory servers and clients.  First some background information.  
I have 2 directory servers and several client servers.  My goal is to 
get the directory servers to replicate using an encrypted link (they 
are currently replicating great using standard ldap port.  My second 
goal is to have the client servers authenticate to the directory 
servers using ssl.  I currently do not have a CA in my organization, 
and would like to use self signed keys to achieve goals listed above.  
I'm trying to understand how this is supposed to work; I took a look at

the howto
www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/dir-sever/ag/7.1/ssl.html#1087158 and have 
just a few questions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way this will work is that I will 
first create a CA cert on directory server A (step 6), generate server 
certificate (step 7).  Next step will be to export the CA cert and
import into directory server B.   

1. When creating the server cert at step 6, what are the appropriate 
values for the -n and -s switches, assuming that my company is named 
company.org.

2. When creating the server certificate at step 7, what are the 
appropriate vaules with the -n, -s and -c switches?

3. What are the switches to use to export the CA certificate using the 
certutil as well as the appropriate switches to import this certificate

on another server.

4. Is it true that after importing the CA cert into directory server B 
and generating a server certificate on this server, the 2 directory 
servers will inherently trust each other as their server certificates 
were generated from the same CA certificate?  If so, I believe that I 
will then be able to create a replication link between the 2 directory 
servers over a ssl link?

5. How do I configure the client servers to use ldaps?  Do I need to 
generate server certificates for each box?  If so, where are these 
certificates stored on the client servers.  Thanks very much for your 
help with this.

Aaron

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