Chapter 7. Revoking Certificates and Issuing CRLs
The Certificate System provides methods for revoking certificates and for producing lists of revoked certificates, called certificate revocation lists (CRLs). This chapter describes the methods for revoking a certificate, describes CMC revocation, and provides details about CRLs and setting up CRLs.
7.1. About Revoking Certificates
Certificates can be revoked by an end user (the original owner of the certificate) or by a Certificate Manager agent. End users can revoke certificates by using the revocation form provided in the end-entities page. Agents can revoke end-entity certificates by using the appropriate form in the agent services interface. Certificate-based (SSL/TLS client authentication) is required in both cases.
An end user can revoke only certificates that contain the same subject name as the certificate presented for authentication. After successful authentication, the server lists the certificates belonging to the end user. The end user can then select the certificate to be revoked or can revoke all certificates in the list. The end user can also specify additional details, such as the date of revocation and revocation reason for each certificate or for the list as a whole.
Agents can revoke certificates based on a range of serial numbers or based on subject name components. When the revocation request is submitted, agents receive a list of certificates from which they can pick the ones to be revoked. For instructions on how agents revoke end-entity certificates, see the Red Hat Certificate System 9 Planning, Installation, and Deployment Guide.
When revocation requests are approved, the Certificate Manager marks the corresponding certificate records in its internal database as revoked, and, if configured to do so, removes the revoked certificates from the publishing directory. These changes are reflected in the next CRL which the CA issues.
Server and client applications that use public-key certificates as ID tokens need access to information about the validity of a certificate. Because one of the factors that determines the validity of a certificate is its revocation status, these applications need to know whether the certificate being validated has been revoked. The CA has a responsibility to do the following:
- Revoke the certificate if a revocation request is received by the CA and approved.
- Make the revoked certificate status available to parties or applications that need to verify its validity status.
Whenever a certificate is revoked, the Certificate Manager automatically updates the status of the certificate in its internal database, it marks the copy of the certificate in its internal database as revoked and removes the revoked certificate from the publishing directory, if the Certificate Manager is configured to remove the certificate from the database.
One of the standard methods for conveying the revocation status of certificates is by publishing a list of revoked certificates, known a certificate revocation list (CRL). A CRL is a publicly available list of certificates that have been revoked.
The Certificate Manager can be configured to generate CRLs. These CRLs can be created to conform to X.509 standards by enabling extension-specific modules in the CRL configuration. The server supports standard CRL extensions through its CRL issuing points framework; see Section 7.3.3, “Setting CRL Extensions” for more information on setting up CRL extensions for issuing points. The Certificate Manager can generate a CRL every time a certificate is revoked and at periodic intervals. If publishing is set up, the CRLs can be published to a file, an LDAP directory, or an OCSP responder.
A CRL is issued and digitally signed by the CA that issued the certificates listed in the CRL or by an entity that has been authorized by that CA to issue CRLs. The CA may use a single key pair to sign both the certificates and CRLs it issues or two separate key pairs, one for signing certificates and another one for signing CRLs.
By default, the Certificate Manager uses a single key pair for signing the certificates it issues and CRLs it generates. To create another key pair for the Certificate Manager and use it exclusively for signing CRLs, see Section 7.3.4, “Setting a CA to Use a Different Certificate to Sign CRLs”.
CRLs are generated when issuing points are defined and configured and when CRL generation is enabled.
When CRLs are enabled, the server collects revocation information as certificates are revoked. The server attempts to match the revoked certificate against all issuing points that are set up. A given certificate can match none of the issuing points, one of the issuing points, several of the issuing points, or all of the issuing points. When a certificate that has been revoked matches an issuing point, the server stores the information about the certificate in the cache for that issuing point.
The cache is copied to the internal directory at the intervals set for copying the cache. When the interval for creating a CRL is reached, a CRL is created from the cache. If a delta CRL has been set up for this issuing point, a delta CRL is also created at this time. The full CRL contains all revoked certificate information since the Certificate Manager began collecting this information. The delta CRL contains all revoked certificate information since the last update of the full CRL.
The full CRLs are numbered sequentially, as are delta CRLs. A full CRL and a delta CRL can have the same number; in that case, the delta CRL has the same number as the next full CRL. For example, if the full CRL is the first CRL, it is CRL 1. The delta CRL is Delta CRL 2. The data combined in CRL 1 and Delta CRL 2 is equivalent to the next full CRL, which is CRL 2.
Note
When changes are made to the extensions for an issuing point, no delta CRL is created with the next full CRL for that issuing point. A delta CRL is created with the second full CRL that is created, and then all subsequent full CRLs.
The internal database stores only the latest CRL and delta CRL. As each new CRL is created, the old one is overwritten.
When CRLs are published, each update to the CRL and delta CRL is published to the locations specified in the publishing set up. The method of publishing determines how many CRLs are stored. For file publishing, each CRL that is published to a file using the number for the CRL, so no file is overwritten. For LDAP publishing, each CRL that is published replaces the old CRL in the attribute containing the CRL in the directory entry.
By default, CRLs do not contain information about revoked expired certificates. The server can include revoked expired certificates by enabling that option for the issuing point. If expired certificates are included, information about revoked certificates is not removed from the CRL when the certificate expires. If expired certificates are not included, information about revoked certificates is removed from the CRL when the certificate expires.
7.1.1. User-Initiated Revocation
When an end user submits a certificate revocation request, the first step in the revocation process is for the Certificate Manager to identify and authenticate the end user to verify that the user is attempting to revoke his own certificate, not a certificate belonging to someone else.
In SSL/TSL client authentication, the server expects the end user to present a certificate that has the same subject name as the one to be revoked and uses that for authentication purposes. The server verifies the authenticity of a revocation request by mapping the subject name in the certificate presented for client authentication to certificates in its internal database. The server revokes the certificate only if the certificate maps successfully to one or more valid or expired certificates in its internal database.
After successful authentication, the server lists the valid or expired certificates that match the subject name of the certificate presented for client authentication. The user can then either select the certificates to be revoked or revoke all certificates in the list.
7.1.2. Reasons for Revoking a Certificate
A Certificate Manager can revoke any certificate it has issued. There are generally accepted reason codes for revoking a certificate that are often included in the CRL, such as the following:
0. Unspecified; no particular reason is given.1. The private key associated with the certificate was compromised.2. The private key associated with the CA that issued the certificate was compromised.3. The owner of the certificate is no longer affiliated with the issuer of the certificate and either no longer has rights to the access gained with the certificate or no longer needs it.4. Another certificate replaces this one.5. The CA that issued the certificate has ceased to operate.6. The certificate is on hold pending further action. It is treated as revoked but may be taken off hold in the future so that the certificate is active and valid again.8. The certificate is going to be removed from the CRL because it was removed from hold. This only occurs in delta CRLs.9. The certificate is revoked because the privilege of the owner of the certificate has been withdrawn.
A certificate can be revoked by administrators, agents, and end entities. Agents and administrators with agent privileges can revoke certificates using the forms in the agent services page. End users can revoke certificates using the forms in the Revocation tab of the end-entity interface. End users can revoke only their own certificates, whereas agents and administrators can revoke any certificates issued by the server. End users are also required to authenticate to the server in order to revoke a certificate.
Whenever a certificate is revoked, the Certificate Manager updates the status of the certificate in its internal database. The server uses the entries in the internal database to track of all revoked certificates, and, when configured, it makes the CRLs public by publishing it to a central repository to notify other users that the certificates in the list are no longer valid.
7.1.3. CRL Issuing Points
Because CRLs can grow very large, there are several methods to minimize the overhead of retrieving and delivering large CRLs. One of these methods partitions the entire certificate space and associates a separate CRL with every partition. This partition is called a CRL issuing point, the location where a subset of all the revoked certificates is maintained. Partitioning can be based on whether the revoked certificate is a CA certificate, whether it was revoked for a specific reason, or whether it was issued using a specific profile. Each issuing point is identified by its name.
By default, the Certificate Manager generates and publishes a single CRL, the master CRL. An issuing point can generate CRLs for all certificates, for only CA signing certificates, or for all certificates including expired certificates.
Once the issuing points have been defined, they can be included in certificates so that an application that needs to check the revocation status of a certificate can access the CRL issuing points specified in the certificate instead of the master or main CRL. Since the CRL maintained at the issuing point is smaller than the master CRL, checking the revocation status is much faster.
7.1.4. Delta CRLs
Delta CRLs can be issued for any defined issuing point. A delta CRL contains information about any certificates revoked since the last update to the full CRL. Delta CRLs for an issuing point are created by enabling the
DeltaCRLIndicator extension.
7.1.5. Publishing CRLs
The Certificate Manager can publish the CRL to a file, an LDAP-compliant directory, or to an OCSP responder. Where and how frequently CRLs are published are configured in the Certificate Manager, as described in Chapter 8, Publishing Certificates and CRLs.
Because CRLs can be very large, publishing CRLs can take a very long time, and it is possible for the process to be interrupted. Special publishers can be configured to publish CRLs to a file over HTTP1.1, and, if the process is interrupted, the CA subsystem's web server can resume publishing at the point it was interrupted, instead of having to begin again. This is described in Section 8.8, “Setting up Resumable CRL Downloads”.
7.1.6. Certificate Revocation Pages
The end-entities page of the Certificate Manager includes default HTML forms for revocation authenticated by an SSL/TLS client. The forms are accessible from the Revocation tab. You can see the form for such a revocation by clicking the User Certificate link.
To change the form appearance to suit organization's requirements, edit the
UserRevocation.html, the form that allows the SSL/TSL client authenticated revocation of client or personal certificates. The file is in the /var/lib/instance_name/webapps/subsystem_type/ee/subsystem_type directory.
