Description

Cookbook to manage deployment of X509 certificates across an infrastructure.

Keys and CSRs are generated according to "x509_certificate" resources during a chef-client run on the hosts which will use them, with the CSRs pushed to the Chef server. Later, certificates are signed by the appropriate CAs and pushed to Chef. A subsequent run deploys the signed certificate.

Temporary certificates are issued to enable services to start while the CSRs are waiting to be processed.

Generated keys are encrypted to a key-vault key, and pushed to Chef for backup.

Requirements

Chef Server

"vt-gpg" Cookbook

"eassl2", "gpgme" gems

GnuPG 2.x

Attributes

GPG is used to encrypt generated keys for archival purposes.

node['x509']['key_vault'] - the email address of the GPG/PGP recipient.

When set to nil (the default), keys will not be archived.

DN components to use when creating certificate names:

• node['x509']['country']
• node['x509']['state']
• node['x509']['city']
• node['x509']['organization']
• node['x509']['department']
• node['x509']['email']

Usage

include_recipe "x509"

Webserver SSL certificate:

x509_certificate "www.example.com" do
  ca "MyCA"
  key "/etc/ssl/www.example.com.key"
  certificate "/etc/ssl/www.example.com.cert"
end

Webserver SSL certificate specifying key size and validity period:

x509_certificate "www.example.com" do
  ca "MyCA"
  key "/etc/ssl/www.example.com.key"
  certificate "/etc/ssl/www.example.com.cert"
  bits 1024
  days 365
end

REST API Server Certificate, with CA Certificate:

x509_certificate "service.example.com" do
  ca "Service-CA"
  key "/etc/ssl/service.example.com.key"
  certificate "/etc/ssl/service.example.com.cert"
  cacertificate "/etc/ssl/service_cacert"
end

REST API Client Certificate:

x509_certificate "service-#{node['fqdn']}" do
  cn node['fqdn']
  ca "Service-CA"
  type "client"
  key "/etc/service/client_key.pem"
  certificate "/etc/service/client_cert.pem"
end

CA Certificate only, for verification:

x509_ca_certificate "My-CA" do
  cacertificate "/etc/myca.pem"
end

Signing Client

A client is provided which allows a user to search Chef for outstanding CSRs, sign them, and create data bag items containing the new certificates.

The client is available in this repository, in the client-gem directory, and may be packaged as a gem for installation.

A number of gems are required, and a Gemfile is provided for Bundler's use.

It also needs access to a Chef admin client key, which may be your own client, and to your ~/.chef/knife.rb which configures the server, key path and client name.

There are a number of modes of operation:

• Find CSRs to be signed by a specific CA, and sign them with that CA.

• Issue an adhoc certificate to a specific DN.

• Create a new CA.

• Find all CSRs awaiting action.

• Find a specific CSR and provide its signed cert - intended for externally-signed CSRs, such as the public SSL certificate providers.

See the chef-ssl program's embedded help text for options:

$ chef-ssl
chef-ssl

Chef-automated SSL certificate signing tool

Commands:
  autosign             Search for CSRs and sign them with the given CA
  help                 Display global or [command] help documentation.
  issue                Issue an ad hoc certificate
  makeca               Creates a new CA
  search               Searches for outstanding CSRs
  sign                 Search for the given CSR by name and provide a signed certificate

Global Options:
  -h, --help           Display help documentation
  -v, --version        Display version information
  -t, --trace          Display backtrace when an error occurs

Workflow

1. Use the x509_certificate resource in a recipe, and run chef-client on the node. The first converge of the resource does the following:

• Creates a new key, with no passphrase.
• Generates and installs a certificate, signed by an ephemeral CA.
• Creates a CSR, which is placed in node[:csr_outbox].

2. Use the chef-ssl tool to find and process pending CSRs. The signed certificate is placed into a databag item.

3. Run chef-client on the node again. This converge does the following:

• Retrieves the certificate databag item.
• Removes the corresponding entry from node[:csr_outbox].
• Installs the signed certificate from the databag.

FAQ

Q) Can I get my CSR signed by a commercial Certificate Authority?

A) Yes - use the chef-ssl sign command to retrieve the CSR, and to supply the text of the signed certificate.

Q) My certificate is about to expire - how can I generate a new CSR?

A) Remove the databag item for the certificate. The next time chef-client is run on the node, a new CSR will be placed in node[:csr_outbox]. The existing key and certificate will not be touched.

TESTING

There are rspec tests in the spec directory, which use the rspec-chef library bundled with the cookbook. These can be run directly:

$ bundle $ bundle exec rspec spec/**/*_spec.rb

TODO

Licence and Author

Author:: Chris Andrews ([email protected]) Author:: Zac Stevens ([email protected])

Copyright 2011-2012 Venda Ltd

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.