For now, I've just copied the CA's public .crt file to a public_html
type directory and downloading on the client ~ from there, depending on
whether I use FireFox or IE, I go into the respective certificates
manager and import the one I downloaded. I've been very deliberate in
making sure it actually gets installed under the root/trusted category,
and not some other category.
I haven't investigated the AIA field... (didn't even know about it)
Would that be specified when creating the CA's keys? Is that best
specified in my CA's cnf file somewhere?
Barring all else, it seems to me like the browser is hanging up on the
fact that the CA's certificate is self-signed. (??)
-Chris
Hugo Garza wrote:
Hi Chris, how are you installing the root CA on the client machines?
In windows once you double click the root certificate you get a
message dialog box and click the install certificate button. On the
following screen press next and on the next screen tell it to install
the certificate to the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities, hit next
then finish. You should get a Windows dialog warning saying that you
are adding a root certificate, and you just say yes.
Now the other possible problem is that on the server certificate that
you created you aren't including the Authority Information Access
(AIA) field. This is crucial so that your customers only have to
install the root CA and implicitly trust any certificates signed by
the root.
On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 2:29 PM, Chris Rider
<chris.ri...@messagenetsystems.com
<mailto:chris.ri...@messagenetsystems.com>> wrote:
We have a client/server architecture based product that needs to
allow SSL communication between our server (CentOS) and various
clients' web browsers (and additionally, other devices, but that's
beyond the scope of this post).
We've been able to get SSL working in both of two different ways
(self-signed certificate & self-signed CA with certificates signed
by that) -- so that is not the issue. Rather, our whole issue is
that we don't want the end-users to confronted with a big scary
browser message that says something akin to "There's a Problem
With Security! / Allow Exception, etc." If they must install a
certificate or two, that would be acceptable, though. So I thought
that creating my own CA to sign certificates with would be a
solution.... apparently not. I'm now getting browser messages that
say the certificate's issuer is not trusted!!! Very frustrating.
So, as I said, I've created my own CA (using this link as a guide:
http://www.g-loaded.eu/2005/11/10/be-your-own-ca/ ), and can sign
my own certificates without problem. I then install the root
certificate, followed by a server certificate signed by that CA.
And, while I can click "allow exception" in the browser to make it
all work, that is not the desired way. We just want to be able to
have the end-user install a trusted root certificate and
everything just work from there. Testing in IE and FireFox nets
the same big scary warning message, no matter what combination of
fields I use in the CSR, etc.
We really don't want to go with a third party CA like VeriSign,
for example -- not so much because of the cost, but we just don't
want to deal with updating countless remote installations of our
product whenever the certificate expires. Not to mention the
support that would be associated with doing that! The other issue
is that some/most of these installations do not have outside
internet connectivity with which to query the CA's (for CRL's, or
whatever). We really need to manage our own certificates, all in
all.... but without these warning messages.
Is it possible?
If so, what am I missing?
--
Chris Rider,
Systems Architect
MessageNet Systems
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